oh great, now a $50 hamburger
- Thread starter Old_Me
- Start date
Annihilator
Emissary
I really don’t understand how people continue to live in that state with all the asinine laws being passed
HansGruber
Ronin
You know…
Capitalism is based on the law of supply and demand.
Currently, labor supply is at a low. Therefore, demand is high, and workers are demanding that they get paid accordingly.
It seems that employers can’t seem to grasp this simple fundamental, and pay a going rate…
But yeah. Let’s blame the people who don’t want to sell their labor cheap.
Keep licking that boot, guys.
Capitalism is based on the law of supply and demand.
Currently, labor supply is at a low. Therefore, demand is high, and workers are demanding that they get paid accordingly.
It seems that employers can’t seem to grasp this simple fundamental, and pay a going rate…
But yeah. Let’s blame the people who don’t want to sell their labor cheap.
Keep licking that boot, guys.
Old_Me
SAINT
i still highly doubt, those hamburgers will look as beautiful when made, than in the pictures on the menu board.
flattened bun, burger slipped off bun, "special sauce" all over the wrapper, in fact, the wrapping job will also be a pitiful sight.
i guess "'fast food now" over "done to perfection"..........
Talyn
SAINT
#1 , everything runs on energy & when energy costs are high due to supply & demand, and wacky Govt policy decisions then everything goes up.
#2, when it pays better to sit at home on Uncle Sugar's payments and hang out on Tik Tok, labor supply goes down
#3 , in general, the last generation doesn't have much of a work ethic.
#4, shutting down the economy, in place of preventive medical care, screws things up
All that are cumulative effects and adds up to the current situation.
My .02
BTW - a Good farm/ranch-raised burger is $14-18 in my area.
Area52
Professional
These high wage-low skill jobs are just part of the of spreading the wealth scheme. It’s going drive out small business (non-donor class)out in favor of woke big business (high donor class).
One has to work somewhere and someone has to show up to work and pay some taxes to give the appearance of creating “jobs” and a burgeoning economy.
Raising minimum wage by law was the way D cities strong-armed the franchise food industry. No small business can sustain the wage and related unemployment insurance. If they don’t pay either, they’re fined. Migrants will be taking over many of the low skill jobs, expect exploitation in the process too. This creates tax revenue to provide stay-at-home entitlement benefits for the slackers that sit on their brains watching a gaggle of elitist hens crackling about how well off this country is now that civility has returned to the WH.
And the last time I went to the Mac-Donalds (2021) the tab was around +$11 for the not-so Big Mac meal deal. Haven’t been back since.
For the sake of the argument I plan on going back now just to see what it costs now.
One has to work somewhere and someone has to show up to work and pay some taxes to give the appearance of creating “jobs” and a burgeoning economy.
Raising minimum wage by law was the way D cities strong-armed the franchise food industry. No small business can sustain the wage and related unemployment insurance. If they don’t pay either, they’re fined. Migrants will be taking over many of the low skill jobs, expect exploitation in the process too. This creates tax revenue to provide stay-at-home entitlement benefits for the slackers that sit on their brains watching a gaggle of elitist hens crackling about how well off this country is now that civility has returned to the WH.
And the last time I went to the Mac-Donalds (2021) the tab was around +$11 for the not-so Big Mac meal deal. Haven’t been back since.
For the sake of the argument I plan on going back now just to see what it costs now.
Talyn
SAINT
A Big Mac & large fries at my local McD's is $10 with no drink.
HansGruber
Ronin
Annnd when was the last uncle sugar “COVID payment”? 2 years ago?
Think you need to stop blaming that and start blaming corps that don’t like their record profits shrinking. Heavens forbid they pay the workers actually making their money a living wage.
Jfal
Professional
I'll wait on this one to see if the fast-food joints simply close up shop. If the business model doesn't work (with an arbitrary wage enforced), the stores will close. Sort of like all the large retailers closing stores due to theft. Unrelated issue admittedly, but obviously if the business model doesn't work for those employers in those markets, they close.
Chains can afford this practice, stand-alone "mom-and-pop"s" can't.
We can argue till we're blue about minimum wages not working (ie, where I live the starting wage for the lowest levels of employment exceeds minimum wage by a factor of 2-3).
It is solely a political ploy to garner attention. Yawn.
Chains can afford this practice, stand-alone "mom-and-pop"s" can't.
We can argue till we're blue about minimum wages not working (ie, where I live the starting wage for the lowest levels of employment exceeds minimum wage by a factor of 2-3).
It is solely a political ploy to garner attention. Yawn.
Old_Me
SAINT
on a different note, the franchise "Subway" shops have to, by their lease/franchise agreements, MUST sell subs at 1/2 price, or BOGO when the corporation says so.
it has been in the news many times, that the franchise shops simply cannot survive doing this. one Subway shop i know of, very near my house, has closed for the second time now......looking for a new test dummy to take it over.
another one, at my local walmart, had closed for a while too, the franchise owner gave up....and not for lack of customers, in the walmart store.
now let's add-in this new (CA and some other areas) that now have a higher minimum wage...
the cost to labor, supplies, ratio is not going to go well for that smaller business owner (franchisee)
at one time if i recall, minimum wage jobs were for H.S. students, moms that had kids in grade school and needed some extra money, college students, and sometimes dads, that needed extra income, cuz thier 40 hour a week job wasn't paying enough.
it was to also guarantee a wage to protect workers from sweatshop owners, and paying them next to nothing
no one was actually supposed to make a minimum wage job thier lifelong job, but to "supplement" thier other wages from their regular 40 a week jobs, especially too, Christmas time, when many need that quick extra cash.
Voc-Tech schools, trade/technical schools, colleges, are supposed to provide training for a higher paying career.......for one's long term future....
not some (back then for me) $1.60 an hour....minimum wage.
actually, back then..???
i was paid "cash under the table".....$1.10 per hour.........
HansGruber
Ronin
You are VERY incorrect about te minimum wage; it was instated to allow a single earner enough to support a family of 4.
It was NEVER about high school students.
HansGruber
Ronin
Grayfox
Professional
It might be different if they actually did $20 worth of work. I knew a lady who was an Assistant Manager at a Home Depot. It was very common for her to have to fill in for an employee who didn't show up. No call or nothing, just didn't come to work. What's more, when they do bother to come to work, they don't actually do much work. Then they whine and gripe if told to do their job.
It doesn't help to fire them. The next one will likely be worse.
It doesn't help to fire them. The next one will likely be worse.
Pro Digy II
Professional
You are 100% incorrect on this one: minimum wage is absolutely not capitalism or supply & demand, it is guaranteed income regardless of performance or qualifications. It is socialism, yet another right-wing myth
It is no surprise that it is in CA, who also wants these to be government employees, far from being capitalism supply & demand.
Area52
Professional
Wasn’t the minimum wage, with the included welfare benefits they’re entitled to receive suppose to be enough to bring one above the government’s poverty level (family of four, working or not)?
Nothing wrong with working two jobs but try telling that with this “living beyond means, digital tech, emoji obsessed, character count, grammar-less, social media influenced, influencing, noodle armed woke Generation Z.
jumpinjoe
Hellcat
Hans, you said it all in your 1st sentence. Capitalism is supply vs demand driven, and right now supply is at an all time low. But I would offer only certain capitalism is totally based on supply vs demand. Some industries like manufacturing and sales can be far more flexible than those like fast food. There are built in limitations to fast food and similar ventures that are not as flexible and certainly not simply supply vs demand.
The reasons why are several, but primarily due to Talyn's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd assertions rather than simply supply vs demand. IE:
#1 , everything runs on energy & when energy costs are high due to supply & demand, and wacky Govt policy decisions then everything goes up. (Energy costs are typically demand driven certainly and are not often adjustable)
#2, when it pays better to sit at home on Uncle Sugar's payments and hang out on Tik Tok, labor supply goes down. (Not many Gov't policy decisions are ever reconsidered, reduced, or eliminated ... their are sometimes 3-4-5 generations on the same welfare train) Know that I am pretty liberal on most social programs and will give the shirt off my back if someone needs it more than me and has made a real effort to get one of his own, but reliably conservative on fiscal matters.
#3 , in general, the last generation doesn't have much of a work ethic.
(This will become very apparent when the 'Auto attendants', 'robots', and 'kiosks' take over the entry level jobs market and put them all out of a job. Of course this only increases the demand for more gov't provided programs)
Very, very few franchise owners, which is the norm for most fast food stores, do not make the money suggested here. In fact, unless they own more than one franchise location and/or have very high work ethics, most make a slightly better than average living, but certainly not the $$$$'s that some seem to believe, and certainly not commensurate with the responsibility of running a business in accordance with all the gov't hoopla, and the responsibility for the people who work for them.
Retail and similar type businesses can consistently support a given pay rate for those on the front lines. Example: A server on a typical buffet line, or a McDonalds type counter can only work to a certain standard of productivity. Whatever the number of burgers that server puts across the counter costs $$$ per burger to provide to the buying public. They are a cost per burger to the seller since the meat is cost fixed by franchise. The cost for that number of burgers from supplier to sale, goes up over time for materials, supplies, operating expenses other than wages/benefits. If the server (or whatever the job) cannot improve on individual production ( IE: less cost per burger across the counter), it's very hard to increase individual wages/benefits based simply on that production. So the owner has to find ways to reduce costs ... or raise prices. Automation is the most likely way, and as automation takes over, they all lose.
A little simpler example is this: A server on a buffet line in a cafeteria can spoon a serving of mashed potatoes onto a customer's tray at a given rate of serving based on the movement of the line and she will be paid a typical wage based on that number of 'spoonings'. At the end of a year, or two years, or more years, if she is still only spooning that same number of 'spoonings', there is no way to increase that pay rate based on production, since there is no improvement in production and one can't normally base wages on seniority. So, it's either raise the cost of a serving of mashed potatoes to the customer, reduce the help, or automate. Mashed potatoes can only command a certain price. When the cost of those potatoes gets to a point the customer will no longer pay, the server and the franchise owner both lose. The server looses his/her job, the owner goes bankrupt and out of business. In fact the entire community loses.
These are very simple examples, but true to real life. They are based on jobs that were never intended to pay a "living" wage, but as a starting level job introduction into the labor market, but not a career/retirement job. The primary way capitalism works as described here is in some manufacturing and/or sales related businesses.
Now as a caveat to what I've written above, there is a very unusual and pretty extreme labor situation that has occurred over the past few years. That is the number of very highly skilled, aged workers who have been laid off or otherwise lost good paying jobs in tech, engineering, and similar, and have gone to work in the fast food and similar industries. These are typically older folks who have been in the labor market for long periods of time, accrued heavy liabilities and/or responsibilities they cannot cover on an entry level job pay scale. They feel they need, and/or deserve a "living wage" because of age, or experience, or other reasons, and some of them do deserve it. But it's simply not feasible to the extent some call for. It all boils down to the basics ... if one cannot improve productivity, one cannot expect an improvement in wages.
Now I'm not looking for any arguments, and I'm certainly not intentionally contradicting anyone. I'm just laying out some of the very most simple explanations, not excuses, for how the economy works. You cannot help but increase the cost of gasoline if you reduce availability of oil, you cannot increase the labor force if you pay them to not work, and you cannot provide an increase in wages/operating costs without an increase in the productivity of your employees or in your sales costs. The bottom line is there just ain't no such thing as a 'free lunch'!