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 dogma wrote:
How many people do you think patronized McDonald's 2 because they once had poor service at McDonald's 1?

Well, I think McDonalds might be an outlier as far as retail goes. I saw a thing pretty recently that most people rate McDonalds service fairly low, but also polled that they were likely to return; they just accept that McDonalds is generally mediocre but it's cheap and disgusting and that's what people like so they don't care.

Unless that was the point you were making.

Recent history shows that Mac Donald's is having issues:


http://www.marketwatch.com/story/mcdonalds-profit-falls-30-on-us-china-woes-2014-10-21

They've been slipping for a while now I believe. But is customer service the cause? I think they're just losing market share to better places to eat, foodwise.

 Ouze wrote:
They've been slipping for a while now I believe. But is customer service the cause? I think they're just losing market share to better places to eat, foodwise.

I'm sure there are other factors involved, but if poor customer service in some form or another were not involved, I would be very surprised. In Russia, for instance, they were shut down for unsanitary conditions. I am sure we have enough former McDonald's employees on these boards that could give anecdotes about things they saw go on. For that matter, anyone that has worked in a minimum wage position where employees were poorly treated could add with their own stories.

 Ouze wrote:

Unless that was the point you were making.

It was, though I probably should have extended the point to include similar establishments.

Relapse wrote:
In Russia, for instance, they were shut down for unsanitary conditions.

In Russia. Russia.

Something closer to home, then. It took three seconds to find this:

http://www.foodfacts.info/blog/2007/09/mcdonalds-towel-water-milkshakes.html

Or this:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g54369-d4929018-r200077657-McDonald_s-North_Augusta_South_Carolina.html


or this:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3473728/ns/dateline_nbc-consumer_alert/t/dirty-dining/#.VQ5gRGK9KSM

It's really very easy stuff to find.

Relapse wrote:

It's really very easy stuff to find.

Yes it is, but those are franchise problems. All food service establishments run into that sort of thing, regardless of compensation, in large part because this...

#1. Hot drink stone cold after 3/4 mile. Called, no acknowledgement.

...sort of thing happens. The drink could not possibly have been hot when the consumer received it if it subsequently became "ice cold" after .75 miles.

Sounds like a troll.

It doesn't matter if it's just a franchise or not. There is far more than enough in those examples I supplied to make my previous statement about quality of goods and services from businesses that think of their workers as disposable stand.

 Frazzled wrote:

1. Realistically, how likely is the owner of Robby to be such an irrational and selfish tosser that they would impose scarcity on everyone else when it would have no material benefit for them and serve no practical purpose? I'm a cynical bugger, and even I don't think most humans are quite that sociopathic.

Its like you took every history book ever written and just chucked it into the Tiber River and in one sentence tried to impose communism. Someone owns everything, even if its the govenrment that owns it.

And this sort of bollocks is exactly what I mean when I talk about anything other than neoliberal orthodoxy being shouted down. Nowhere, not once, at any point, have I used the term Communism, nor described Communist ideology, nor argued that ownership as a concept would cease to exist. Merely that it would cease to apply to the means of production in a scenario where total automation of that process makes ownership of it totally irrelevant.

2. Realistically, even if we assume Robby's owner is just such a petty nutjob, how does he prevent someone else or multiple someone elses building Randy the robot and Ralph the robot etc etc and then giving away their versions of scarcity-ending automation technology for free, making Robby worthless and his owner's apparent desire to make everyone else's life crap just because he can utterly futile?

1.Why is he a nutjob. I assume you have possessions correct? Are you a nutjob too?
2.Scarcity ending technology requires power and assets to build it. Guess what, those are owned to.
3.You could end "scarcity now" if everyone just had a box, and one change of clothing. AS the immortal bard said: thats now how it works. Thats not how any of this works!

1. Possessions aren't the issue, see above. You're conflating personal property with ownership as a basic concept, when in reality the first is a subset of the other, just as owning the means of production is a subset. He would be a nutjob because he would be inflicting suffering on other people unnecessary - scarcity necessitates absence for some, and for a portion of those, the absence will be of essentials required for survival. If you would actively try to preserve a system of scarcity in which people starve and die when you had the means to end it and, more than that, could not even claim "rational" self-interest since preserving it would bring you no benefits whatsoever beyond fulfilling your twisted apparent desire to see others struggle and starve, damn straight I'd say you're a nutjob. I'd even say you were a monster.

2. But once they are built power and assets no longer have any real worth. If energy is collected and transferred automatically, resources are extracted, processed, and transported automatically, and both are then transformed into goods(or services) by fully automated manufacturing(or service-provision), as part of a process that repairs and maintains itself automatically cost no longer has meaning. When you boil it all the way down to the basics, there are only two actual costs; labour and energy(and arguably just energy, since the only reason we actually need compensation for our labour is that it requires us to expend energy which we must replenish). Energy is a cost because it requires resources to generate; that no longer applies in a post-scarcity system. Labour is a cost because our means of production requires it, and so it is a resource like any other; in a post scarcity system not only is labour no longer necessary, neither is compensating people for it, since any effort that people expend is entirely their choice as there is no "cost of living".

3. And here you demonstrate(again, given your earlier cracks about Communism) your fundamental misunderstanding of what we're actually talking about. Your example does not "end" scarcity, it is merely an imposition of uniform want. A post-scarcity system is not one where we impose equality, it is one where "equality" is meaningless because any material need is met and any material want fulfilled. It is a system where whether you choose to live as the equivalent of a scraggly mountain-man hermit or a ridiculous possession-obsessed billionaire celebutant heiress is irrelevant because nobody else has to bear any burden whatsoever to support your choice.

3. Realistically, even if we assume aforementioned sociopathy, as well as aforementioned imaginary ability to somehow prevent anyone with a different inclination from ever developing similar technology, and Robby's owner manages to impose artificial scarcity on everyone else; how is Robby's owner supposed to prevent the other 6.999.999,999 people on earth dragging him out of his home in the middle of the night and stringing him up like a French noble or Russian Tsar? Historically, when the wealthy and powerful go full-on "let them eat cake", people don't react well.

Again its not about "developing technology" its about ownership of the assets required to make and power everything. I can invent an STC tomorrow but it don't mean gak because I still have to buy the stuff to make the STC and the stuff to make the goods. The only thing thats change is that you've cut out the machine tool industry and thrown some employees off the job.
WHICH IS WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW.

Addressed above. Automated manufacturing alone is not post-scarcity; if you invent an STC tomorrow, and combine it with automated mining, automated resource processing, automated transportation, AI management systems, automated solar collectors connected to an automatically-built superconducting grid, etc etc, then scarcity ceases to have any meaning unless we impose it, and my question was how would the tiny minority of people who would "own" things prior to the creation of such technologies impose scarcity on the vast majority of humanity if said vast majority decided to French Revolution up the place?

Prestor Jon wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 Easy E wrote:


Yes, this would never happen!

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal

Woops. It is even in America. Imagine if we went to the third-world!

His wages have risen and fallen based on "time studies," the method nonprofits use to calculate the salaries of Section 14 (c) workers. Staff members use a stopwatch to determine how long it takes a disabled worker to complete a task. That time is compared with how long it would take a person without a disability to do the same task. The nonprofit then uses a formula to calculate a salary, which may be equal to or less than minimum wage. The tests are repeated every six months.

I realize many people are opposed to a meritocracy.

I am not one of them.

I will also never understand how people continually associate what a CEO gets paid to what they think they should get paid.

Sorry, meritocracy isn't the practice of letting private actors do whatever they want and hope that they play nice, I believe what you're looking for is "anarcho-capitalism".

No, he got it right with meritocracy. The wage you earn is based upon your contribution in the workplace and the value you add to the company/employer.

Except that isn't how it currently works, your wage is based on how little the employer thinks he can get away with paying the you. Capitalism and meritocracy are not interchangeable.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:


Except that isn't how it currently works, your wage is based on how little the employer thinks he can get away with paying the you. Capitalism and meritocracy are not interchangeable.

There is a bit of both, though I wouldn't say it's based on your performance, it's based initially on your expected performance. Throw in there the various jobs that require university degrees (there's a perceived merit there) or other specialized skill sets and it's like I said, IMO, a bit of a mix between a meritocracy and "pure" Capitalism.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Prestor Jon wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 cincydooley wrote:

 Easy E wrote:


Yes, this would never happen!

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/06/25/19062348-disabled-workers-paid-just-pennies-an-hour-and-its-legal

Woops. It is even in America. Imagine if we went to the third-world!

His wages have risen and fallen based on "time studies," the method nonprofits use to calculate the salaries of Section 14 (c) workers. Staff members use a stopwatch to determine how long it takes a disabled worker to complete a task. That time is compared with how long it would take a person without a disability to do the same task. The nonprofit then uses a formula to calculate a salary, which may be equal to or less than minimum wage. The tests are repeated every six months.

I realize many people are opposed to a meritocracy.

I am not one of them.

I will also never understand how people continually associate what a CEO gets paid to what they think they should get paid.

Sorry, meritocracy isn't the practice of letting private actors do whatever they want and hope that they play nice, I believe what you're looking for is "anarcho-capitalism".

No, he got it right with meritocracy. The wage you earn is based upon your contribution in the workplace and the value you add to the company/employer.

Except that isn't how it currently works, your wage is based on how little the employer thinks he can get away with paying the you. Capitalism and meritocracy are not interchangeable.

No, with respect, you're missing the point. Section 14(c) workers having their wages based on time studies is a meritocracy. They earn less than other employees who can do the same work faster, those workers are more efficient and productive so they are more valuable. Consequently you get different wages for the job based on merit.

The only one trying to conflate that with capitalism is you.

A flaw I have seen in many businesses is that they somehow expect the slower workers to somehow get faster on their own without bothering to train them to the best methods of the faster workers.
They seem to have the notion that threatening a firing is going to improve performance. This robs both the worker and the business of anything good.

Relapse wrote:
It doesn't matter if it's just a franchise or not.

Your argument depends on being able to extend poor practices at a given franchise to all other businesses operating under the same aegis, and further to any business that treats certain workers as expendable.

If a problem cannot be shown to extend beyond a given franchise, then your argument falls apart.

Relapse wrote:

There is far more than enough in those examples I supplied to make my previous statement about quality of goods and services from businesses that think of their workers as disposable stand.

You're putting the cart before the horse in assuming that poor service, and food, at fast food restaurants is the result of treating workers as though they are expendable.

I am not assuming anything though. I have personally witnessed such things happening and been told and read of enough other incidents in the course of my job to know it goes beyond anecdotal evidence.
I am not suggesting it is the sole reason, but it does play a large part.
When you have people you treat as disposable workers on whom you spend next to no time on in training or development, as a rule you are going to run into issues.


http://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/workforce-management/employee-performance-management/why-loyalty-matters.aspx

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/effects-lack-employee-training-42687.html

Lots of interesting and clearly highly educated replies to this thread. However, when dealing with minimum wage issues we need to look at who it effects: Walmart, Target? The automotive industry? Absolutely not, as they all routinely pay above US Federal minimum wage. Minimum wage jobs tend to be concentrated in service industries which are dominated by family, to small and medium size businesses; nor do these jobs represent a significant piece of the US workforce.
When these arbitrary increases are made, the results are almost always negative. The lady with the lawn care business with ten employees suffers the most. Those ten employees are now 100% more expensive than before, but do not necessarily generate an equal return in revenue. Hence, the owner who draws a salary out of her net profit can do three things:
1. Cut her own salary, hence literally taking food out of her family's mouth.
2. Increase her prices, making finding new customers more difficult and keeping existing ones problematic.
3. Lay off workers, reducing her overall productivity, being on the hook for unemployment payments, and taking food out of another family's mouths.

What is the solution? I wish I knew. Market forces could lead to exploitation, while unionism ( most of my employees are Union) can lead to gross over payment and significant inefficiencies. The federal wage is pointless as it can be worth wildly different depending on where in the country you live. When someone figures this out and can implement it where the owner's right to determine their own business practices without exploiting workers is protected, make that person the God-Emperor of mankind.

1/325AIR wrote:
Lots of interesting and clearly highly educated replies to this thread. However, when dealing with minimum wage issues we need to look at who it effects: Walmart, Target? The automotive industry? Absolutely not, as they all routinely pay above US Federal minimum wage. Minimum wage jobs tend to be concentrated in service industries which are dominated by family, to small and medium size businesses; nor do these jobs represent a significant piece of the US workforce.
When these arbitrary increases are made, the results are almost always negative. The lady with the lawn care business with ten employees suffers the most. Those ten employees are now 100% more expensive than before, but do not necessarily generate an equal return in revenue. Hence, the owner who draws a salary out of her net profit can do three things:
1. Cut her own salary, hence literally taking food out of her family's mouth.
2. Increase her prices, making finding new customers more difficult and keeping existing ones problematic.
3. Lay off workers, reducing her overall productivity, being on the hook for unemployment payments, and taking food out of another family's mouths.

What is the solution? I wish I knew. Market forces could lead to exploitation, while unionism ( most of my employees are Union) can lead to gross over payment and significant inefficiencies. The federal wage is pointless as it can be worth wildly different depending on where in the country you live. When someone figures this out and can implement it where the owner's right to determine their own business practices without exploiting workers is protected, make that person the God-Emperor of mankind.

This isn't an honest line of reasoning. The relevant information in the discussion isn't "How many employees of large employers are payed federal minimum wage($7.25)?" it's "How many employees of large employers are payed below the purposed minimum wage increases ($10 to $15)?".

There are certainly a ton of jobs making above minimum wage, but well below even the more modest of the new minimum wage proposals and certainly below livable wages or the more generous proposals (like the $15/hr Seattle implemented).

There has been a lot of news of these employers increasing their internal minimum wages to be more in line with the lower end of these guidelines over the past year so. However, I can't help but think this is just them adjusting for the direction the wind is already blowing. If they see a minimum wage increase as inevitable in the near future it might be best to just change their policies sooner rather than later and get any business disruptions done with with on their own time tables before the law forces their hand.


EDIT: Your point 2 is further dishonest. If she's paying at or near minimum wage her competitors likely are as well. In this case a high wage floats all prices, her competitors will similarly have to raise prices. Unless of course her primary competition is big-box landscaping that can afford to eat the new minimum wage increases. In which case I weep little for her comparatively predatory business, no matter how small and family-owned it was.

Relapse wrote:
I am not assuming anything though. I have personally witnessed such things happening and been told and read of enough other incidents in the course of my job to know it goes beyond anecdotal evidence.

You're assuming that your experience, and the data collected by people sympathetic to your position, can be extended to all relevant cases. This is a poor assumption.

Relapse wrote:

When you have people you treat as disposable workers on whom you spend next to no time on in training or development, as a rule you are going to run into issues.

What do you mean by "...as a rule..."?

 Chongara wrote:
Your point 2 is further dishonest. If she's paying at or near minimum wage her competitors likely are as well. In this case a high wage floats all prices, her competitors will similarly have to raise prices. Unless of course her primary competition is big-box landscaping that can afford to eat the new minimum wage increases. In which case I weep little for her comparatively predatory business, no matter how small and family-owned it was.

She is also likely paying under the table.

 Ouze wrote:

 dogma wrote:
How many people do you think patronized McDonald's 2 because they once had poor service at McDonald's 1?

Well, I think McDonalds might be an outlier as far as retail goes. I saw a thing pretty recently that most people rate McDonalds service fairly low, but also polled that they were likely to return; they just accept that McDonalds is generally mediocre but it's cheap and disgusting and that's what people like so they don't care.

Unless that was the point you were making.

Is it an outlier? Their sales are going down. I won't eat there, partially because the service is usually so bad. Ditto for Subway.

 dogma wrote:

Relapse wrote:
I am not assuming anything though. I have personally witnessed such things happening and been told and read of enough other incidents in the course of my job to know it goes beyond anecdotal evidence.

You're assuming that your experience, and the data collected by people sympathetic to your position, can be extended to all relevant cases. This is a poor assumption.

Relapse wrote:

When you have people you treat as disposable workers on whom you spend next to no time on in training or development, as a rule you are going to run into issues.

What do you mean by "...as a rule..."?

 Chongara wrote:
Your point 2 is further dishonest. If she's paying at or near minimum wage her competitors likely are as well. In this case a high wage floats all prices, her competitors will similarly have to raise prices. Unless of course her primary competition is big-box landscaping that can afford to eat the new minimum wage increases. In which case I weep little for her comparatively predatory business, no matter how small and family-owned it was.

She is also likely paying under the table.

M

My experience covers almost a decade of Job Instruction and Job Relations training. The only reason the data seems sympathetic to my cause is because it reflects truth. If you want a number put to "as a rule", up to 80% of a businesses problems can be solved with proper training and employee development. The data came from 600 factories that were polled by the Training Within Industry service post WW2, and it holds true to this day.

Yet another series of charts citing the cost of high turnover:

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/report/2012/11/16/44464/there-are-significant-business-costs-to-replacing-employees/

http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0711/the-cost-of-hiring-a-new-employee.aspx

http://www.tlnt.com/2015/02/04/how-to-lose-your-best-employees-in-10-simple-steps/

So far I have been the one supplying facts and figures and articles from business sitesto back my position, and could easily fill out this page with more.
If you could produce an extensive amount of data that shows business won't suffer from lack of training, high turnover, or bad treatment of employees, I would love to see it.

A business with a haphazard or minimal training program will suffer. I could make a list of the issues that such businesses encounter if you'd like.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Frazzled wrote:

 Ouze wrote:

 dogma wrote:
How many people do you think patronized McDonald's 2 because they once had poor service at McDonald's 1?

Well, I think McDonalds might be an outlier as far as retail goes. I saw a thing pretty recently that most people rate McDonalds service fairly low, but also polled that they were likely to return; they just accept that McDonalds is generally mediocre but it's cheap and disgusting and that's what people like so they don't care.

Unless that was the point you were making.

Is it an outlier? Their sales are going down. I won't eat there, partially because the service is usually so bad. Ditto for Subway.

Yep, they are down 30%.

 Ouze wrote:
They've been slipping for a while now I believe. But is customer service the cause? I think they're just losing market share to better places to eat, foodwise.

No doubt - it's called chipolte.

Chipotle is strictly ok.

Now you want inexpensive awesomesauce-try Torchies Tacos. It started as a roach coach in downtown Austin.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
They've been slipping for a while now I believe. But is customer service the cause? I think they're just losing market share to better places to eat, foodwise.

No doubt - it's called chipolte.

Chipotle is mediocre. You want good, you want Q'doba.

Chipolte is pretty good for the speed, although I prefer Indian over Mexican.

 Frazzled wrote:
Chipotle is strictly ok.

Now you want inexpensive awesomesauce-try Torchies Tacos. It started as a roach coach in downtown Austin.

Fairly priced quick tacos and burritos with real non chlorinated meat? Yep - this is the kind of stuff that ruins Micky Dees. Still though - sometimes you must just have a McDub.

They make great smoothies. The only thing I buy from them. Although I like Wendy's better (frostys are awsome).

 djones520 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
They've been slipping for a while now I believe. But is customer service the cause? I think they're just losing market share to better places to eat, foodwise.

No doubt - it's called chipolte.

Chipotle is mediocre. You want good, you want Q'doba.

djones has it right.

Q'doba beat the snot out of Chipotle.

I will try this Qdoba.

 Frazzled wrote:
I will try this Qdoba.

Extreme exaggeration going on here - Qudoba and Chipotle are essentially the same restaurant. You might fancy a certain spice over another but that's a matter of taste. The quality of both is pretty high for the price and you have a lot of personal choice. Personally for me the seasoning chipolte uses on their steak is to me at least - for the lack of a better word - orgasmic. One thing I really enjoyed about qudoba when i lived near one was when I ordered some queso for my burrito they gave me a small bowl of it. I really like things in excess, especially when it's cheese.

Best burrito ever from chipolte?
flour tor
black bean
white rice
sauteed green peps and onions
steak
queso cheese
corn
sour
cheese

THE BEST.

I do love Chipotle's food. But their perpetration of falsehoods regarding food production is something I don't like. Half of the things their wrappers claim other places do are false or actually illegal(and thus haven't been done for decades)