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Applebee’s exec urges using high gas prices to push lower wages, sparks walkout

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Re: Applebee’s exec urges using high gas prices to push lower wages, sparks walkout

#331

Post by glenstein »

ars wrote: post #258
glenstein wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and this is the trouble with trying to get people to engage with hypotheticals on the internet in thoughtful ways. The usual formula for any engagement with hypothetical ideas is for it to be reflexively dismissed with a "that'll never work" response. Most of the time I think this is the instinctive friction we feel at being asked to engage with a new idea, and saying that'll never work for [insert reason] is i…

It's not really that complicated. If everyone has more money, then everyone can afford to pay more, so prices will rise to consume that extra money. And you are back where you started. Or you have to raise prices again, in a never ending loop. I suppose you can hand out ration cards for food and housing, so those never have a price, just a government supply. That's the only "out" I can think of to keep the loop from…

I mentioned this in a different comment, but this assumes the uniform distribution of inflation, which isn't how it works.

Different segments of the economy can function as shock absorbers that bear the brunt of inflation, while other segments of the economy see their prices rise more slowly then the increase of wages.

Different sectors of the economy face different degrees of surplus and strain, and the relations between those structures are always up for renegotiation as new money enters the system.

Re: Applebee’s exec urges using high gas prices to push lower wages, sparks walkout

#332

Post by greedo »

jasonhansel wrote: post #91

At least he was being honest. I think that many corporate executives have thoughts along these lines: they want employees to be so desperate that they'll accept low wages and bad working conditions. That is, of course, why they tend to campaign against e.g. minimum wages, food stamps, and reforms that would make it easier to unionize. The only difference is that other execs have the good sense not to put such thought…

At a certain level, I'm convinced that sociopathy is a strong factor in the executive world. They don't view the workers as fellow humans, but as a cost center to be minimized. Or rubes to take advantage of. They suppress what little compassion they have and are often rewarded by owners and boards of directors for hitting the financial numbers.

Not all are like this, but it sure seems like a trend. For every Dan Price, there are a thousand Jack Welch clones.

Re: Applebee’s exec urges using high gas prices to push lower wages, sparks walkout

#333

Post by profile53 »

metadat wrote: post #219
profile53 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. One of the things that surprised me the most working in healthcare was how many people have a flagrant disregard for anything but self interest — even human life. Sadly the policy mechanisms have failed to keep these people out.

Yes, I've been appalled by the pervasivness of the self-interest mentality throughout big healthcare. An unfortunate side-effect of capitalism and top-down management structures. Even if the workers want to do better things, they don't have the power to enact meaningful change within the organization. The health insurance companies are even moreso this way. Anecdotally, Kaiser is easily the worst offender, not even t…

Pretty much all the chains are equally bad — I’ve worked for 3. Agreed on the management problems preventing meaningful change though. Nothing will get better until the entire system collapses in my opinion…

Re: Applebee’s exec urges using high gas prices to push lower wages, sparks walkout

#334

Post by Lammy »

gruez wrote: post #196
rpmisms wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Henry Ford, capitalist extraordinaire, famously paid his workers $5 a day, double the average automaker's wage at the time. This extracted maximum value from said labor.

I know the popular story is that: 1. pay workers extra (ie. above the market rate) 2. workers are richer now 3. they use that money to buy the stuff you make 4. ??? 5. profit! Has this actually been studied empirically? If you had to choose between paying your workers $1000 more and pocketing it, surely the latter option is the better one? Sure, they might use some of that money to buy your product, but they're not g…

What if we lived in a world where we were nice to people because we wanted to be, and not just when we get more numbers out of it?

Re: Applebee’s exec urges using high gas prices to push lower wages, sparks walkout

#335

Post by greiskul »

ummwhat wrote: post #282
nostrademons wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inflation, probably followed by corruption. Minimum wage would rise to the point where a person could afford a 1BR apartment within a 1 hour drive without traffic. Then the rents of those 1BR apartments would rise to capture that new minimum wage. Then minimum wage would rise to afford the new rent, and so on. Eventually someone's going to say "Hey, I own an apartment block downtown, I'm supposed to rent it out to th…

My pet theory is cities are malthusian. Contrary to popular belief, Malthus didn't predict runaway population growth. What he actually predicted (and was right for most of human history), is that any gains in productivity would be eaten up by population growth until the average wealth per person diluted down to it's previous level. So back to cities. Here's my pet theory. You build more apartments, or faster trains o…

There is also the Georgian explanation that rent seeking landlords will always increase rent to match any gains in production. Assuming that a landlord will always charge the maximum they can that market will sustain, any increase in production will mean an increase in what the market can pay for housing, and with time, what the landlord can extract from tenants. It neatly explains how cost of living correlates to job opportunities, and how all the productivity gains from technology end up not increasing the general population wealth.

Re: Applebee’s exec urges using high gas prices to push lower wages, sparks walkout

#336

Post by gruez »

astrange wrote: post #319
gruez wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Minimum wage has other effects. It eliminates extremely unproductive jobs what are these "extremely unproductive jobs" you speak of? Is the job of a burger flipper really so bad that we should eliminate it from the economy? Is it so bad, that if someone's skills only allows him to do that job, that it's better for him to stay at home and twiddle his thumbs than to show up to work?

That's for sure a productive job and it hasn't been eliminated here. Sunnyvale's minimum wage is $17/hr and McDonalds/Wendys/In-n-Out pay slightly above that (I read the posters in the drivethrough.) I've never seen a fast food restaurant in the area close, though of course family run strip mall places have as they often do. I was thinking of things like servants, typists, textile workers.

>I was thinking of things like servants, typists, textile workers.

I don't think they were eliminated because of minimum wage. They were eliminated because of a combination of outsourcing/globalization, which set an upper bound on how much those jobs can pay (at least in the US), and baumol's cost disease, which set a lower bound on what workers were willing to accept. The two forces combined to make those professions unviable. Getting rid of the minimum wage probably won't bring those jobs back. If anything the jobs will go to more productive sectors (thanks to baumol's cost disease), rather than to the utterly unproductive ones like you mentioned.

Re: Applebee’s exec urges using high gas prices to push lower wages, sparks walkout

#337

Post by greedo »

stickfigure wrote: post #317
a4isms wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you run a business, you choose a location. If the landlord does something that causes a noxious smell, it's on you to fix it. We don't say, "Well, that's the landlord's fault." Your business, your leasing arrangements. When you run a business, you choose employees. If an employee does something noxious, it's on you to fix it. We don't say, "Well, that's the employee's fault." Your business, your employee hiring,…

This is a stretch. The corporate office may or may not have the contractual ability to intervene; they can't just cancel franchisees because they feel like it. More importantly, it's up to journalists and even randos on HN to avoid trying to confuse the relationships involved. If some McD's manager said something stupid and offensive, we can't indict the whole chain. Individual humans have agency.

The parent company doesn't get a blank check though. That's the risk with franchising. Some franchisee may do something stupid and it reflects poorly on the parent. That's why most franchise agreements are very one-sided.

Here's a perfect example of how a franchisor can play hardball. I worked for a McD's that was a dominant store in our region. Located right off the Interstate and got tons of consistent traffic. Just an excellent, very profitable store. But our owner/operator was a dick to Corporate. So they opened a new store at the next offramp. "Offered" it to our operator, but the terms were ridiculous, so he passed on it. Found someone to take it, and we dropped 30% in sales. Back in the 80's that cost our owner $80K in lost PROFIT. He was pissed.

Re: Applebee’s exec urges using high gas prices to push lower wages, sparks walkout

#338

Post by Mezzie »

gruez wrote: post #171
subpixel wrote: post #156

If I were King of America, the tax code (and other financial instruments I can't think up on the spot) would reward companies based on the degree to which they enrich their rank and file employees.

>would reward companies based on the degree to which they enrich their rank and file employees. How would this work? How is this different than a payroll subsidy or the EITC?

Off the top of my head:

- Tie tax rates/benefits/penalties to the discrepancy between CEO/C-suite pay and average/lowest-paid employee pay

- Tax benefits to companies who provide enriching programs for employees (like some universities that offer tuition benefits and programs to help you get mortgages, etc)

- Tax penalties for not giving COL raises each year

Etc.

Re: Applebee’s exec urges using high gas prices to push lower wages, sparks walkout

#339

Post by erik_seaberg »

daniel-cussen wrote: post #224
XorNot wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is however realistic given the the US's urban layout and population preferences. Also nowhere has succeeded in keeping essential, low paid workers living near where they work - gentrification forces them out.

That's because their work has so much value and they get paid none of it. EDIT: That's what Henry George said. The reason San Francisco land has so much value and the land in an undeveloped part of California has nearly none is the development, meaning the work of developing it, what human hands do to the land to transform it, the construction. You can sprinkle gold on it and nothing, put a bulldozer there (capital)…

Most of the price is due to the shortage of land, near the employment market, where the government has permitted any housing to exist. Someone paid over a million for a half-burned shell in Walnut Creek, which is a lot more than a very nice house in the middle of nowhere.

Re: Applebee’s exec urges using high gas prices to push lower wages, sparks walkout

#340

Post by bduerst »

tacitusarc wrote: post #237
glitchc wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) UBI is not UBI unless everyone gets it. 2) Any income surplus generated by UBI is rapidly consumed by middle people and rent-seekers. That’s how we get inflation.

I do not understand what you are trying to convey through either of these points. Would you mind clarifying?

There are goods and services with income-elastic pricing, like housing.

UBI indirectly and unfairly benefits only the people who control those goods and services. If everyone made $1000 more per month, housing prices would raise up to that amount for everyone. This means the majority of the UBI raise would go into just the landlords pockets.

This is why many welfare programs are expense- or need-dependent, because it maximizes the benefit to those who need it without impacting price inflation as much.

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