281–290 of 427 posts
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Have you looked at interest rates lately? The times of "extortionate rates" are long gone.
The Fed's rate might be low, but is that reflected in rates for consumer debt?
2.49% auto loans are common, and some people can get even better. Mortgages are similarly cheap.
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> Finland proposes paying the unemployed (this differs slightly from unemployment benefits in the US) while Ontario proposes paying anyone below the poverty line. Neither of these is a UBI. Paying only people who are unemployed is in particular quite the opposite of what you want, because it discourages people from taking a job since they'll lose the money. Moreover, you need more of the middle class to be receiving…
> Neither of these is a UBI. They're considered quasi-UBI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income#Quasi-U... I do agree there are better implementations to be had, and that the implementation probably makes all the difference in outcomes. That said, I wouldn't say they're expressly not UBI. I also just learned about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income#Alaska_...
Google claims under 9,000 results for quasi UBI. Some use it to highlight how actual UBI would be better. Some use it to describe programs like basic income for everyone in rural regions. Not expanded unemployment benefits.
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"living wage" is an emotional political term - there's no objective definition of it and instead of appealing to rational argument it appeals to irrational notion that somehow you can live on $20/hr but would die if you received $19/hr, and so it's somehow a moral imperative to pay $20/hr (and in a year it turns out it's already $25 that is a moral imperative because somehow, out of nowhere, prices have risen!). I'm…
Are there a lot of anecdotal stories of "I raised prices and I had to close shop because of drop in demand" ? All I see are people just shutting down and giving up.
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"living wage" is an emotional political term - there's no objective definition of it and instead of appealing to rational argument it appeals to irrational notion that somehow you can live on $20/hr but would die if you received $19/hr, and so it's somehow a moral imperative to pay $20/hr (and in a year it turns out it's already $25 that is a moral imperative because somehow, out of nowhere, prices have risen!). I'm…
Are there a lot of anecdotal stories of "I raised prices and I had to close shop because of drop in demand" ? All I see are people just shutting down and giving up.
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You're presenting it as he has an infinite money supply and just of pure stupidity and greed doesn't want to pay $20 or $50 per hour. Maybe his supply is not unlimited, and maybe nobody would buy a taco for $50 and he knows it, and he made the calculation and decided there's no way to pay all his costs, charge the price that people would be willing to pay, and make a profit. Now, if you know how to do it, there's a b…
Christ, people here and their taller than standard horses. My girlfriends dad owns a pizza place and walked away with $5k last year, after paying rent, supply and wages. Where do they magically pull this money from? They aren’t evil banker types with bags marked “$$$” full of money like people here seem to think and it is disgusting they’re considered cheap instead of just “people will absolutely not pay the increase…
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You dont need to increase prices by 30% to raise the hourly rate from $15 to $20. Pay is like a fixed cost. If your cook makes 100 items an hour and you profit 1$ off each item. Your profit for the hour only goes down by $5 not by 33 cents per item
But you also need to factor in the demand curve. Raising the price by 25% also means there will be less customers, which means your fixed costs (eg. rent, equipment) go up for each unit of good sold.
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Christ, people here and their taller than standard horses. My girlfriends dad owns a pizza place and walked away with $5k last year, after paying rent, supply and wages. Where do they magically pull this money from? They aren’t evil banker types with bags marked “$$$” full of money like people here seem to think and it is disgusting they’re considered cheap instead of just “people will absolutely not pay the increase…
$5k total, or $5k in addition to their salary? If you dug into it, I'm guessing it would be the latter.
It's surprising businesses haven't turned to automation. At the very least, most of a restaurant's and a coffee shop's labor can be replaced with automated ordering, having the customer collect food themselves when it's ready, and using robots to prepare more of the food. they can do lattes with art all by themselves now. A lot of these businesses just can't survive if they meet the wage demands of people who have be…
You must want to live in a frigid world bereft of human connection. I recently went to a place that had no welcome/front end staff, just workers making a product (desserts) and a two kiosks at the front to take your order. The kiosks interface was poorly made and confusing for a first time person. Worse, there was no sign telling me to step forward and order using the computer nor was there any sort of line to know w…
If restaurants do it poorly that is of course an issue, but it's not like rude servers and bad service don't exist.
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But you also need to factor in the demand curve. Raising the price by 25% also means there will be less customers, which means your fixed costs (eg. rent, equipment) go up for each unit of good sold.
Every restaurant could raise every price on the menu by a dollar tomorrow and I wouldn't notice unless it was a soda or something. I'm highly skeptical a small increase in prices would drive people away. Like with minimum wage increases, every time it's allegedly going to be the end of small businesses in the area and then it never is.
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To me, if 50% of restaurants close tomorrow, fine. There are people who dine out 3, 4, 5 times a week, who don't really know how to cook anything beyond microwaved meals... that's completely insane! And I think that's kind of what all of this hysteria is about. Because yeah, if the price of a burrito went up by $2-3, those people would have to learn how to cook some basic meals for themselves. Not so long ago, dining…
> There are people who dine out 3, 4, 5 times a week, who don't really know how to cook anything beyond microwaved meals... that's completely insane! I am not sure we have to be judgemental about other people's cooking skills to decide that restaurant workers deserve better pay. Everyone has some expertise, and some people choose to not learn how to cook, and that is ok.
I do feel that I can judge people for that, because other people work like dogs to cook their meals for them at below poverty wages. I'm judging, and I'm also raising the point that the current state of affairs is the absurd one. Not a possible future state of affairs where restaurants are again a luxury and people have to cook meals at home.