Huge companies that pay low wages force their employees to use public assistance
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
STEPHANIE RUHLE (HOST): In today’s "Money, Power, Politics," are we subsidizing low-wage employees for companies with record profits? A comprehensive report from UC Berkeley’s Labor Center studied working families who rely on public assistance programs like Medicaid and CHIP, the basic household income assistance program Temporary Aid to Needy Families, and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. That means U.S. taxpayers are footing the bill. That’s about 153 billion bucks every year.
The Intercept and the New Food Economy examined this problem, focusing specifically on Amazon employees using SNAP food benefits. In the state of Arizona, please listen to this, one in every three of Amazon employees depend on SNAP to put food on their family’s table. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, the figure appears to be about one in ten. The president for his part consistently picks fights with Amazon about their use of the U.S. Postal Service for deliveries and their dominance in the retail market, and even Jeff Bezos owning The Washington Post . But here's what makes no sense. None of those touch the legitimate criticisms of Amazon. You want to criticize Amazon? I’m going to help you do that right now, but what the president is going after is nonsense.
When jobs do not pay enough, workers turn to public assistance in order to meet their basic needs, and that burden is falling on taxpayers. But when the head of that company paying low wages happens to be the richest man in modern history -- let me remind you of this, Jeff Bezos on Amazon Prime Day become worth $150 billion -- when he’s worth that much money, you begin to start asking the question, are companies like this who are paying their employees so little gaming the system?
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Greed is a sickness.
My AMZN stock has been my best performer recently. Thank you Jeff Bezos for not being greedy and sharing the wealth.
actually he is greedy and not sharing the wealth
His workers work 10 hour days with few breaks and some of them are on SNAP
83% of Amazon is owned by other people. So the wealth has been and is being shared.
If his workers find the conditions unacceptable, they can certainly find employment elsewhere. Everybody's hiring.
Greed like so many things is a good thing, unless taken to extremes. You are talking the extremes where someone pursues his greed to the detriment of others.
It happens every single day.
No doubt, probably millions of time each day. Greed also causes some people to work harder trying for raises, or even jobs.
Walmart costs the taxpayers $6.2 billion in welfare and food stamps every year. These employees turn around and spend most of their food stamps there so they not only get corporate welfare they get to double dip. I say we make the Waldens pay for the wall.
Oh really?
Well let's just stop those payments right now.
Let's end the military. Why are we taking money from people in the form of taxes and using it to protect corporate business interests? If global corporations based in the US want protection for their business interests let them pay for it themselves.
The point is, decisions a society reaches are arbitrary. Why should we end the social safety net, other than you would like it done?
Actually, that sounds more like what the coal companies used to do to the miners. Paid them in script which they could only use in the company store
Walmart pays low wages that the employees can only stretch by shopping at Walmart
2.1 million jobs in the USA alone. I thought the right wanted to create more jobs, not get rid of them.
"When jobs do not pay enough, workers turn to public assistance"
Instead of looking for a new job. A "Few" folks settle, get complacent, then bitch.
End federal welfare programs and return the money to taxpayers through more tax cuts
approximately 2% of Americans earn the minimum wage when you factor salary exempt employees and the self employed
more than half of that 2% are under age 21
Time to abandon the Marxist policies, many of which date back to FDR’s fascism and return to a government that reflects our Constitution’s limited government requirements
Fascism: noun - a political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.
I don't see anywhere in that definition that says "Set's up a trust fund for the elderly" or "Sets up health insurance for the elderly/disabled and orphans". The idea that FDR was a fascist is about as loony as claiming Lincoln was a confederate spy.
Fascism relied heavily on redistribution of wealth programs
FDRs love of Fascism
In the North American Review in 1934, the progressive writer Roger Shaw described the New Deal as “Fascist means to gain liberal ends.” He wasn’t hallucinating. FDR’s adviser Rexford Tugwell wrote in his diary that Mussolini had done “many of the things which seem to me necessary.” Lorena Hickok, a close confidante of Eleanor Roosevelt who lived in the White House for a spell, wrote approvingly of a local official who had said, “If [President] Roosevelt were actually a dictator, we might get somewhere.” She added that if she were younger, she’d like to lead “the Fascist Movement in the United States.” At the National Recovery Administration (NRA), the cartel-creating agency at the heart of the early New Deal, one report declared forthrightly, “The Fascist Principles are very similar to those we have been evolving here in America.”
Roosevelt himself called Mussolini “admirable” and professed that he was “deeply impressed by what he has accomplished.” The admiration was mutual. In a laudatory review of Roosevelt’s 1933 book Looking Forward, Mussolini wrote, “Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices.… Without question, the mood accompanying this sea change resembles that of Fascism.” The chief Nazi newspaper, Volkischer Beobachter , repeatedly praised “Roosevelt’s adoption of National Socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies” and “the development toward an authoritarian state” based on the “demand that collective good be put before individual self-interest.”
. In 1935 former President Herbert Hoover was using phrases like “Fascist regimentation” in discussing the New Deal. A decade later, he wrote in his memoirs that “the New Deal introduced to Americans the spectacle of Fascist dictation to business, labor and agriculture,” and that measures such as the Agricultural Adjustment Act, “in their consequences of control of products and markets, set up an uncanny Americanized parallel with the agricultural regime of Mussolini and Hitler.” In 1944, in The Road to Serfdom , the economist F.A. Hayek warned that economic planning could lead to totalitarianism. He cautioned Americans and Britons not to think that there was something uniquely evil about the German soul. National Socialism, he said, drew on collectivist ideas that had permeated the Western world for a generation or more.
In 1973 one of the most distinguished American historians, John A. Garraty of Columbia University, created a stir with his article “The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression.” Garraty was an admirer of Roosevelt but couldn’t help noticing, for instance, the parallels between the Civilian Conservation Corps and similar programs in Germany.”
Chomsky on America's Ugly History: FDR Was Fascist-Friendly Before WWII
George Kennan, later famous as one of the architects of post-war policy, was actually the American Council in Berlin up until Pearl Harbor. He was sending back reports which are public, which were qualified. He said we shouldn't be too harsh in condemning the Nazis since a lot of what they are doing is kind of understandable and we could get along with them and so on and this is one strain and a major one. But there was also plenty of criticism and condemnation. But the general attitudes were fairly mixed.
At the Munich Conference late 1938, Roosevelt sent his most trusted adviser, Sumner Wells, to Munich and Wells came back with a pretty positive report saying we can really work with Hitler, this conference opens the possibility of a period of peace and justice for Europe and we should work out ways to interact and deal with him. That was late 1938! And so it was quite a mixed story.
Before the start of WWII, every western nation thought that Hitler could be reasoned with . What you have produced is a false narrative of events devoid of the circumstances around them, to prove a political point. FDR was no more a Fascist, than Abraham Lincoln. He was the president who got us into the war to fight the Germany and the fascist. My only complaint about him historically, is that he waited too long, but that was because the US had become isolationist and wanted no part of the war until Pearl Harbor.
Is a "Smore" a chocolate bar? Is a "Smore" a marshmallow? Is a "Smore" a graham cracker? No, of course not, but a "Smore" contains each of those things.
Our nation is not "socialist", and it's not purely "capitalist" either. It is a unique combination of the two mixed with a constitutional republic. Why do you continue to claim the Smore is just a chocolate bar when it's painfully obvious it's not? Why do you keep claiming we somehow have "National Socialism" when it's painfully obvious to anyone living below the poverty line we do not?
FDR wasn't a fascist, the new deal did not force fascism on the United States. FDR was not a socialist either even though he adopted some socialist programs that have made us the envy of the world for nearly a century now. We are stronger with the three cords of socialism, capitalism and representative democracy bound together as one. Pure capitalism would devalue the poor, sick and elderly leaving them to die, while pure socialism isn't viable either as it stagnates growth and removes incentives for entrepreneurs. But a mix of both make a whole new creation that takes care of the elderly while also providing incentives and opportunity for growth and new ideas.
America, with it's mix of capitalism, socialism and constitutional Republic, is the Smore I want S'more of. Sadly, we have some who want to screw everything up by removing the smooth creamy chocolate bar of socialism from our mix completely destroying what has made us great. Sad.
Old enough to spank your bottom for being so fresh!
Oh, oh, oh! Can I be next?
Like John Russell, you are true brainwashed by Marxist public education to understand that free market enterprise is the only true means of not only offering the opportunity to succeed, but for voluntary sharing and compassion for others.
Christian principles couple with capitalism is the best means of caring for those not able to care for themselves. Forced collectivism can never equal this.
Sorry, I disagree. FDR was a traitor who gave half of Europe to his buddy Stalin whom he lovingly referred to as “Uncle Joe”
FDR refused to allowed Jews fleeing Hitler to come to the US
FDR pushed the Supreme Court to rule in his favor in Wickard v Filburn which forced farmers to grow crops against their wishes and opened the door for unlimited federal power over both agriculture and business
FDR implemented Mussolini’s social welfare program model for redistribution of wealth programs
FDR implemented the Fascist and Nazi model of crony capitalism to control businesses in the US
Do you think that a free market requires capitalism? Minority control over the productive resources in a national economy is not what enables a free market.
I love it when certain types try to pretend they care about Jews so much. These are the people who support Israel solely on the basis of the whacked-out armageddon prophecies in which Israel and all the Jews get wiped out for good, this time.
Govt control and free market are polar opposites by definition
I’ve supported Israel for decades and have been honored for my support. Secondly Armageddon is not a battle that wipes out the Jews. It’s just the opposite.
Armageddon occurs after the 1000 year reign of Christ on earth when Satan is released from prison and leads a revolt of people from around the world against Christ.
Yes they are! That suggests that you think capitalism = freedom from government control. If so, you are quite mistaken. Capitalism = minority control over the productive resources in an economy. There are many ways to achieve capitalism. One method, by the way, is European social democracy - capitalism under heavy government regulations.
Free market economy seems to be the best method, today, for achieving an effective economy. Competition, ambition, etc. But a free market economy is not what defines capitalism. Capitalism is more specific than that.
Go on.......
Wait, on second thought let's let a fundamentalist evangelical pastor have the first bite:
Now, go on (keeping in mind that Jews aren't buying any of it)...................
Capitalism is the mortal enemy of a free market. The ultimate goal of the true capitalist in a pure capitalistic system is to eliminate all competition. A monopoly is the holy grail of capitalism. And the purist expression of labor in capitalism is slavery where the cost of labor is ZERO.
So you have to be a Christian now or your system doesn't work? I don't care if you're a Christian, but you can take any sort of theocracy you imagine and gently place it where the sun don't shine.
The vast majority of us want and even need the highway and roadway infrastructure that connects us as a society. They are the very arteries of America. Just because I never drive down your street doesn't mean you shouldn't have a street or that I shouldn't have to pitch in for your streets cost and maintenance. We all pay taxes for social needs that the vast majority use but couldn't individually afford. When my grandfather on my mother side retired, I was very thankful we had social security to supplement their income, and hell, he'd been paying into it for 50 years. I was also glad he had Medicare when they found out he had colon cancer. Those are social goods for our elderly that we can't simply expect religious charities and the private sector to pay for and the peace of mind that comes with that kind of stability in knowing you're not going to have to sell the house or go bankrupt trying to afford any of our grandfathers cancer medications or chemo therapies.
You seem to have an idealized Christian nation view where nothings going to get better till you have zero taxes other than the 10% tithe to the Church, we go back to driving wagons with horses so we don't have paved roads anymore, and any widow or orphan can go live happily in a Church orphanage where everything is roses because everyone is a Christian who by definition could never abuse a child (/s) and old people never get sick because everyone prays for everyone else. Thankfully that's not the America we live in, we live in a diverse, multi-cultural, multi-faith, socialist/capitalist constitutional Republic that uses a representative democracy to determine the laws and taxes that govern society. Those taxes pay for the benefits we all receive like collective protection by our military, the police, fire departments, utilities, roads and bridges, a trust fund and medical insurance for our elderly, disabled or orphaned.
It is your responsibility to properly read what I write.
Ah, Wickard v. Filburn. I share the distaste, but I don't recall that the case forced farmers to grow crops against their wishes. Rather, as I recall, the thrust of the decision was that the federal government is able to regulate production (of crops in this instance) even if the product is never placed in the stream of commerce. That is, the interstate commerce clause reaches wholly intrastate activity, even if the product of that activity isn't placed on the market. Significant enlargement of the commerce power.
In other words, the tomatoes growing in the back yard are subject to federal regulation under the commerce clause. Under the Court's logic, congress could limit the number of meals my family eats at home because eating at home has a substantial economic effect on the restaurant industry.
Your definition is called crony capitalism which is how fascism allows capitalism to operate
Quote what you are calling 'my definition' so I know what you are talking about. In the meantime, here is a definition for Crony Capitalism:
I have not defined anything that matches the above. Crony capitalism exists (and is quite alive and well in the USA) but you brought this concept into the discussion, not me.
As a matter of vocabulary, "free market" is ambiguous. I assume you are using it here as a synonym for "supply and demand", but many people use it to mean "unregulated".
I was distinguishing from a command economy :
I understood.
The definition you cite spotlights the problem I brought up:
There are in fact two elements here:
- supply and demand
- little or no government intervention
The problem is that these two are incompatible in the real world. Only government intervention prevents companies from committing all the various misdeeds that allow them to beat the supply-and-demand game: monopolies, kick-backs, and all the others that fill the headlines.
Capitalism / supply-and-demand is indeed a very effective combo, but it is eternally in unstable equilibrium, with all the players looking for ways to subvert it in their favor. The objective of capitalism is not progress or even creating wealth in any general sense. The objective of capitalism is to maximize the return to shareholders, and this by any means.
A truly free market is anathema to capitalism. A truly free market limits shareholder return, because it ensures that any profitable activity becomes more and more competitive. Therefore capitalists naturally abhor truly free markets, and do whatever they can to subvert them.
There is no need to get into the nuances of a term such as 'free market' to distinguish it from a command economy. The comparison works at the most basic level.
I agree with what you wrote but it is not relevant here (at least for my purposes).
OK
Unfortunately, many people above the minimum wage need assistance to obtain the necessities of life.
We have the greatest income inequality in the history of the world. Why do you think that is ok?
Nowhere did I say I want income inequality. But only Marxist governments forcibly engage in seizing from one class of citizens to give to another that didn’t earn it
if you don’t have what you need, make the changes to resolve that. It’s called personal responsibility, not making others do it for you
So in your ideal America, those who were born with disabilities or those too old to work might as well go kill themselves, right? If they aren't able to earn it, then they shouldn't have anything right? Sounds a lot like the Nazi program of getting rid of all the disabled, elderly and those who the State deemed "unwanted" or "disruptive". They rounded up not only Jews but those of any other religion other than Christian, they rounded up the disabled, gays and dissidents who weren't accepting Nazi rule or were helping those deemed "inferior" to escape Nazi capture.
I don't want to live under a pure socialist regime, but I also don't want to live under a heartless capitalist State that doesn't care for the elderly, disabled and orphans. We are better than that, our mix of socialism and capitalism works.
Hard work and willingness to learn additional skills certainly helps keep people off govt. assistance yet doesn't take into account lifes unexpected storms. If your father was injured or worse died unexpectantly what would your mom had done to provide for the family? Replacing a wage earner is hugh in many households, particularily those left with children.
The govt. did a tremendous disservice to our educational system when trades/skills were removed from schools in favor of fast tracking all student to college! My college graduate nieces and nephews wouldn't know how to change oil and their kitchen skills are laughable.
I get a kick out of some of the responses you see on seeds like this.
If only people would work harder, get a better education, be more responsible, then EVERYTHING would be all right. That is not the way it works folks, it has never worked that way and it never will.
IF everyone in the US had a college degree we would still have a certain level of poverty.
Capitalism REQUIRES that some group of people be paid the lowest wages, and those wages will always be much lower than the median. Capitalism requires that some people be poor. There has NEVER been a time in the US when the poverty rate has been below 10 percent, and there never will be. And if we don't have government "welfare" it will be a lot higher than 10%, and has been.
When everyone is educated and has "skills" we will have people with education and skills mopping bathroom floors.
There has to be an element of "redistribution" in a fair society, because human beings are fallen creatures who if left to their own devices will cheat, horde, exploit and steal. That is why libertarianism is a pipe dream.
Most Marxist statists share your Hegelian view view that only the state should exercise compassion and caring. But done through forced collectivism is just totalitarianism
Frederic Bastiat correctly refuted this false accusation by you Socialists that opposing Statism means we dont care in his famous Treatise, The Law in 1850
“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain"
John, you have just demonstrated that you don’t know the first thing about free enterprise or capitalism
nowhere is this ideology does it “require some people to be poor”
in fact it is the only economic model that offers everyone that greatest opportunity to succeed
you are so brainwashed by Marxist ideology I doubt you will ever understand this
Absolutely spot on.
One of the most ridiculous theories i have ever heard is that everyone should get a college degree. I'm not against the concept per se but some people just aren't meant to go there. Just like not everyone was meant to join the military or go into the trades or finish HS for that matter. Heck, the college i attended had like a 20-30% attrition rate just from Freshman year alone. Everyone going to college would just be a bigger waste of limited resources
That said the leadership positions for our trades men and women get paid a total package over 120k right now. One wonders why so many folks are fixated on getting a liberal arts degree and waiting on tables after they get it.
First, you named your son "Bimbo"? Second, that's great that you saved up so he can survive you while also living with disabilities, but does that mean we should just refuse to take care of the disabled who didn't have such prescient parents?
I would say John has a much stronger understanding of capitalism. The consequence of the fringe poor is a side-effect of capitalism. Cutting costs is part of the competitive equation. Thus companies will seek to get the best prices on commodities AND labor. In the past the cheaper labor was domestic. Nowadays companies have made use of inexpensive foreign labor. Domestic labor is not cheap but the wages have been largely stagnant (at the lower levels) for decades.
So you are correct that capitalism is not defined as 'exploit the most easily replaced workers' but a natural consequence of the overall dynamics of capitalism is just that. I am surprised you have not noticed this. And yes, capitalism has worked well for many years in the USA. Try to recognize the good AND the bad.
Another polls with a sample size of one reported by one clearly not disintrested "pollster." I really don't understand why people think there unique personal story explains everything in the universe.
Of course.
What we see on threads like this is that people confuse , or deliberately misapply, "anyone can succeed" and "everyone can succeed". It is true that anyone can succeed if they work hard enough, get the breaks, are educated, etc. It is not true that everyone can succeed. That is not what capitalism is.
Given that poverty for some is inherent in capitalist activities, good capitalists should not complain about having to "pay for" the upkeep of the losers. It is all part of the game.
This simply isn't true. I do not believe that only the State should exercise compassion. Do we have laws against charities that I don't know about? Everyone who can help, should help. But to claim that only the private sector with anonymity and virtually no accountability should solely be responsible for taking care of every old, infirm, disabled, orphaned American is just ignorant. Cutting all taxes that go to social programs would not magically make life for everyone turn to gold.
Private charity could not possibly cover the need. This has been studied.
You also have a distorted view of free market capitalism. What you are describing is the result of crony capitalism which is government regulated and controlled capitalism.
ive run businesses around the world and will gladly debate views on economics
You want everyone to make the same amount - regardless of what they do??? Imagine how that would kill motivation to do the hard work of pushing the envelope. Yikes. Bad, bad idea to NOT want income inequality.
What you want is income inequality where the inequality is justified.
And it's what the US excels at. Regulated is, of course, the wrong word. Our government encourages it, nourishes it and protects it with legislation that keeps it in place and thriving. A perfect visual of how crony capitalism works would be a group picture of the Scumbag cabinet.
Then let's see you actually debate.
Note that I did not describe crony capitalism (and you definition of same is the exact opposite of what actually takes place). I described the natural force of cost cutting and how that leads to tapping international lower wage markets. In short, if a company can get equivalent work with lower-paid international workers they will do so. They used to do that domestically (especially in the early 20th century) but now the opportunities (especially given our global economy and enabling technologies) transnational corporations are taking advantage of lower international wages.
My first recommendation for debate is to not mislabel the concepts.
And in almost the same breath they'll oppose the government providing that education. Why? Because that would cost a few bucks and they'd actually have to pay some taxes to get the well-educated, motivated, highly trained work force that they claim is lacking. Hypocrites now, hypocrites tomorrow, hypocrites forever.*
*and yes I realize who I'm paraphrasing
Does your stance mean you disagree with our President handing out $12B to farmers to compensate for tariffs put in place by the same administration?
I sure hope so
I think you don't get it Livefree,
If everyone in the world was equal and worked hard and got educated, started their own business, changed jobs, moved around, whatever your think they are supposed to do......who tends the registers, or cooks the food, or cleans the bathrooms, picks up the trash, teaches the children, you know all those low paying jobs that keep people on government benefits. How much more are those services worth to a business man, enough to eat into his profits more than reality predicates today? doubt it.
Your ideology is a fairy tale that will never happen and your stubbornness to step back and actually look at the world or even the US as a whole instead of through some small pinhole is what is holding you back.
True ..... the world needs ditch diggers to Danny ....
I think the story is a bit more complicated that just the government arbitrarily deciding to remove the trade/skill classes in high schools. This is from a 2012 article in Forbes:
In the past 30 or so years, private for-profit so-called "learning institutions" (e.g., "University" of Phoenix, DeVry Institute, Trump "University") have moved into this area of education and the government has often helped pay the tuition for these often scammy operations (see Trump "University" successful lawsuit by students scammed by it). State-by-state (mostly Republican-dominated) have been trying to choke public education to death and siphon off public money for private (read: religious/charter) schools which has proved to be a massive failure. These schools routinely underperform public schools but continue to be funded at taxpayer expense, often used for corruption:
Charter school corruption
Charter school corruption
Charter school corruption
I think it's safe to say that the public educational system has been used as a political football for decades now and that's the source of its deterioration.
This isn't the first elitist, snobby and nonsensical comment from you about people who work at hard and often menial physical jobs.
We had nearly 150 years of private-only almost entirely religious-sourced ways to deal with poverty: alms houses, poor farms, forced and child labor and debtor prison before that "system" was finally exposed as a complete sham and failure when the Great Depression hit. But it seems the reactionary extreme rightwing wants to do is go back exactly to that.
I agree, Judge Smails, as a fictional character in a fictional movie, was indeed very purposely elitist and snobby. Me on the other hand not so much. Especially considering that I paid my way through college largely by digging ditches as a plumber/pipefitter.
You missed the mark badly again .... one would think you would tire of being wrong all the time but alas .... it appears that will NEVER happen .....
Some liberals just don't understand the problems their "policies" create even when they are slapped in the face with them.
This will only work for a little while until people get tired of self service and demand human faces again. Apparently, Walmart is getting away from self-service, too, now
Yea they all are going this way. You can thank the minimum wage advocates. Yea I still go to the register where there is a person when I can (I honestly wonder if the $15.00 minimum wage advocates do) but that is getting harder and harder. Did you know in CA this is the norm and not the exception any more? Chipotle style restaurants outnumber sit down and serve by far there already
I don't think you read what I wrote. Walmart is getting away from more self-service because customers are complaining.
McDonald's and other fast food places are going to find that this won't make customers any happier, especially when someone who doesn't know how to use a kiosk tries to order a Big Mac (think elderly people)
We shall see. If Walmart is going the other direction they are the only one. I see this trend expanding everywhere I go. Even if what you say is true I don't see it happening any time soon and if the minimum goes to $15.00/hr I think you will be proven wrong. You may be proven wrong anyhow.
My sister in law REFUSES to go to self serve in grocery stores
I don't blame her.
Agree. Consumers, at least the aging ones like me, see kiosks as job killers. I don't ever use a self checkout. You'd think we would have learned the lesson from gas stations!
If the middle class consumers would slow their roll instead of deeming their time more valuable than someones job, the job killing automation would be slowed.
Same here. I have seen self-checkout registers that don't charge the right prices for some items if you are not watching carefully. So I always use the regular check outs. At least if something is not charged correctly, the checker can address it at the time of checkout and correct the error. Plus, that checker may be a single Mother and the bread winner for her family, and that job is her means to provide for her family at the moment. BTDT as having been a single Mother myself, and I appreciate the their need to have a place to start.
If NO one used them, they'd be removed and replaced with workers. The amazing thing to me is consumers willing to take on the task of scanning and bagging with no discount for taking on the task.
Meanwhile, you're gleefully rubbing your hands together as more and more self-service registers are being put in place
good point
I always use them when I am getting beer. It always sets off a light, stops progress, and someone has to come over and work on it.
In most places where I see them, no one is using the self check out registers, even when there are long lines at the regular check out stands.
Does it ask to see your ID to buy the beer? (grin)
LOL! Yes! Because it has to make sure you're old enough for that beer. That's happened to me at the commissary when I bought cigarettes and used the self-checkout
To each their own i guess. I don't seek them out but end up using them quite often when the regular lanes have long lines. No doubt most people DON"T like self checkout, which is fine by me if it gets me in and out of there faster ..... which it usually does,
I won't use them for check out at Walmart or other stores, but I like the ones Sheetz has for made to order food
That might not be to far off. The other day I was going through a checkout and trying to work the gadget with my bankcard. I looked up and on a screen, staring back at me, was my face. I thought, what the...
Then I lingered a moment trying different faces.
Our Walmart has a lot of them. At Home Depot there is like 6 self checkouts and a woman that stands there at the end, basically doing nothing, but says thanks for shopping here today.
Our local grocery store though took them all out.
Our local Safeway has a self check out lane that's almost never used. It may have something to do with the "No Alcohol Sales" sign on it.
Most likely. If it can't read your birth date on your ID to verify your being old enough to buy alcohol, or whatever, then it can't be use to purchase that item. No fun.
On the contrary. I said I try to go in a lane a human is attending whenever I can. I posted an example of what the push toward a $15.00 minimum wage is doing. For some reason you refuse to associate the two. Why is that?
Because I believe it's more about corporate greed than anything else. McDonald's could afford to pay their people more but don't want to because it will cut into their profits
Here they demolished a McDonalds with a playground, down to the ground. I think they are rebuilding a new one in its place. Seemed like a waste.
I only use self service. Let them do something more productive
Do you actually think that haranguing people with your 17th century political ideas is "productive" ?
I guess if you don't like people you prefer self-service
yer such a nice guy
Your Marxist ideology blinds you if you think that using workers in more productive ways is 17th century
No, I think your political ideology is 17th century.
So, why are they still in such demand, hard to get and cost so much to obtain?
I'll bet this is "hey, it's a slow day, let's blame liberals for automation!!" Yeah, we crafty liberals invented the machine age way back at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in order to put people out of work Henry Ford was a well-known socialist, in fact. J.P. Morgan was really a commie--I'll bet none of you knew that. And we all remember Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet [hint: he didn't] so that proves that all the jobs lost due to the Digital Age are because.....LIBERALS!!!! And fracking to get so much natural gas out of the ground and put coal out of business and miners out of work--All due to LIBERALS.
AUTOMATION OCCURS WHEN IT'S CHEAPER THAN HUMANS TO GET THE JOB DONE. (except for those where the job is hazardous) BTW I expected you to completely sidestep the fact that the push for a $15.00 minimum wage has anything to do with it.
Progressive nonsense. Henry Ford was no Socialist. He was however very anti-Semitic. Perhaps you got "anti-Semitic" and "Socialist" confused .....
Wow, did I ever hit a raw nerve in you. Do you really make yourself believe that every McD employee all over the country was getting $15/hr and that's why the Co. did this? That means you can make yourself believe anything -- as long as it passes your ideological screen. McD was going to do this even if the minimum wage was the paltry federal minimum ($7.25) everywhere. If these machines can replace any worker at any wage at lower cost that's what drives the decision (maybe not the only thing but the main thing). This is a fundamental tenet of capitalism that you don't seem to understand despite constantly praising it as the best thing since Jesus (who would have deplored it, by the way). Labor is the biggest cost in almost any business but especially in food service. But you're probably most sore about having the big "egg" you laid in trying to pin every technological and production advance on 'liberals." The ridicule for that is the least you deserve for being so blinded by ideology that it turns you into a target for it.
I forgot that irony is wasted on a particular type. And someone is really mixed up about who or what is anti-semitic. Here's a good example of what's anti-semitic: Persistently calling a Jewish man who survived the Holocaust as a teenager (by hiding out in the household of a man whom his father arranged to protect him) a Nazi collaborator. I think you know what I mean. And if you suggest I'm confused again about who and what is anti-semitism I'll give you the opportunity to say it to my face.
Well you are obviously confused because Henry Ford was clearly not a Socialist.
I could call a horseshoe, a tic-tac, but it still doesn’t make it one.
And I could call "it" a horse's ass.
Sure could but assigning a personality trait to an inanimate makes no sense either.
Sparty I think I am going to have to agree , that Ford was anything BUT a socialist, anti semite , yes ,Nazi sympathizer , yes, socialist no , even though he pioneered and implemented the $5 a day pay scale AND the 40 hr work week in the 1920s , he was also verilantly opposed and against Unions and even went so far to use violence to suppress unionization in his enterprises.
And to explain why he would go for both a standard min wage and a dedicated work week? simple business really , pay the price to keep the best employees and give them the conditions they can be happy with. To him it made good business sense to pay the $5 a day wage to keep good employees all year long , rather than pay the $2 and some change a day to 300 employees to fill 100 slots annually. he simply found a way to keep employee turn over ( which itself is expensive to get them trained) to aminimum, good business sense.
Yep he was an innovator and a shrewd, driven businessman but a nice man? Not by most definitions.
He also paid those wages so his employees could buy a car from him
He was definitely no socialist, I agree. He happened to be a great innovator, tho
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He also understood the positive market impact of a living wage for his employees Vs the race to the wage bottom that is currently in vogue with so many today's employers.
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Why Did Henry Ford Double His Minimum Wage?
By: Jeff Nilsson
Published: January 3, 2014
I was just following you absurdity lead.
Sure you were ...../s
I think the single short expression "duh" is the best response for that one.
You obviously didn't recognize the irony in calling Henry Ford a socialist so it's a bit late for you to try to try it now.
Lol, yeah, you were being ironic ........ not!
Again, whooooooosh-------right over your head.
Again .....LOL
Minimum wage laws have little impact on the use of Kiosks or Self Service registers. The idea that as a business I can purchase a Kiosk for $5,000 and enter into a service contract for all kiosks owned which when the cost is spread is only $3,000 per Kiosk Per year. After the initial $5k cost which is depreciated over 4 years my out of pocket is only $3k per year...We would have to go back to slave labor to compete with that.
That appears to be the plan: How Missouri Workers Won and Lost Their Minimum Wage Hike
Here in OR, self-service is not allowed at filling stations. And, no, gas prices are not higher than in neighboring states--in fact, often lower comparing similar sized cities.
dang that brought back a forgotten memory , back in the mid 70s , I spent a summer being a pump monkey for the local Gulf station my uncle worked for. I remember the complaints when the price per gallon went up to 35 and 40 cents , calmed them down by making sure I got their windshields extra clean and making sure their oil was checked.
You're just a pup if gas prices were that high when you were, what, 16?
it was couple years after the gas shortage and oil embargo, so I want to say about 14 or 15, I remember at 10-11 , getting gas for my then new mini bike from sears, and buying a gal of hi test gas for 25 cents a gal and riding the dang thing all day long on that gal. that was before the embargo and shortage. Im only 56 and already comfortably semi retired and have been since I was 48.
most folks I know today cant remember paying under a dollar a gallon when they started driving.
Bezos is just following the methods developed by the biggest brick-and-mortar chain, Walmart. (Let us recall that Sam Walton's six children, who have never had anything do do with running the company, are richer than 100 million other Americans, combined.)
It always surprises me that people are shocked (shocked, I tell you!!) that capitalists abuse the system to improve their bottom line.
That is what capitalists do! It is their intimate nature. Anyone who imagines otherwise is a fool.
It is disgusting that in the richest country on earth we go bankrupt over medical bills, that people who work cannot afford basics like food, and that companies try to squeeze every last dollar upward instead of paying a basic living wage to workers.
Remember the Walmart bait and switch on "Made in America', they used to tout that as a slogan, but it wasn't long before they filled their stores with Chinese goods and created a system where poor people shop there without realizing the bait and switch, then they pay so little in wages that many of their employees need food assistance.
Corporate welfare is totally out of control and Congress does nothing but reward them even more.
It gets worse and worse with every GOP administration who spend more time spouting talking points against the working poor, than actually addressing the needs of their own constituents.
The working poor are already working for their benefits, most states already have in place a work requirements for benefits or demand that recipients come in weekly or monthly to present their job search results.
I do not believe people are lazy and I believe people want dignified work, but companies are greedy and even fail to hire adequate staff levels in many industries. Then fail to provide adequate wage increases to keep up with rising costs of living.
It is a smart business strategy for a high volume retailer.