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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

#441

Post by ByteJockey »

kasey_junk wrote: post #305
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.

How do you define success in this case? I live in a neighborhood where the median income is below the national average by about 10% and above the national average by about the same amount. This implies to me that there are is a fair bit of economic diversity. Also, I very rarely encounter a service worker that does not live within 25 minutes of the establishments in my neighborhood unless they do so by choice to live…

> I live in a neighborhood where the median income is below the national average by about 10% and above the national average by about the same amount.

My brain is not parsing this sentence properly. Could you elaborate a touch?

I'm reading it as "the neighborhood median income is, at the same time, 10% below and 10% above the national average income", which is only possible if both the national average and your neighborhood median is 0. I presume I'm reading it wrong.

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

#443

Post by gruez »

greiskul wrote: post #344
gruez wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why single earner households can't afford a house on a single earner wage isn't because houses got 2x harder to build, or a single earner got half as productive. It's because there's only so many houses (land) available, and therefore the people with money (mostly 2 earner households) bid up the price until the people who can afford it equal the number of houses available. So yes, those people "with 'tradi…

> only so many houses (land) available Here is a radical idea. Build more houses. Maybe put them on top of each other so they don't have to be so far away from jobs. American love complaining about the inefficiencies of centrally planned economies, but then make one of the most important aspects of the economy, where people can live and work, into a entirely centralized way of doing.

>Here is a radical idea. Build more houses. Maybe put them on top of each other so they don't have to be so far away from jobs.

No disagreement here.

>American love complaining about the inefficiencies of centrally planned economies, but then make one of the most important aspects of the economy, where people can live and work, into a entirely centralized way of doing.

Are they really centralized? NIMBYs aren't some cabal of shadowy billionaires, they're a grassroots effort by local residents. By that definition it's quite decentralized.

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

#444

Post by dragonwriter »

glitchc wrote: post #220
bo1024 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A universal basic income would have some advantages over a minimum wage. Minimum wage interferes with supply and demand in the labor market, which is why some economists dislike it. UBI moves the supply curve to a different place, but it allows those principles to function.

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.

> Any income surplus generated by UBI

Typical UBI proposals are funded, e.g., by additional progressive taxes, and so no actual income surplus is generated (in a first-order analysis), income is redistributed, compressing distribution.

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

#445

Post by barry-cotter »

colechristensen wrote: post #255
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…

Zoning. You link the "zones which employ people" and "zones which house people" to balance so you don't have significantly more jobs than homes. Next you zone for type of housing, where you only allow a certain percentage of the most profitable 1BR apartments to be built, and require those to be above certain size thresholds so that a variety of life situations can actually live in your city. You don't need to "incen…

Alternatively you could just not make building housing illegal. the mor regulation you add the more expensive things are going to be and the more opportunities there are for corruption. The harder you make building housing (the more regulations there are) the more expensive housing is going to be. If housing is expensive homelessness will rise.

Alternatively you could be like San Francisco and lard on regulations "meant" to help that have the effect of reducing supply, resulting in a large homeless population, since people want to live there.

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

#446

Post by dragonwriter »

ars wrote: post #253
tacitusarc wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

He's saying that if everyone has extra money, then everyone can afford higher prices. Since they can afford higher prices, people will charge those higher prices. And you are back where you started.

> He's saying that if everyone has extra money, then everyone can afford higher prices.

UBI only gives everyone extra money if it is unfunded; typical UBI proposals are funded by either increased progressive income taxes or cutting other spending (which produces income to the recipient), and so is (in first order effects) zero-sum. (Typically, it replaces rapid clawbacks from means testing with slow clawbacks by progressive tax increases.)

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

#447

Post by dragonwriter »

njarboe wrote: post #252
bogwog wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI could allow the elimination of minimum wage entirely, along with a ton of other scattered welfare programs that have lots of administrative overhead and the typical middleman industries that leech off of government programs. It’s a no-brainer!

Most people working for minimum wage (and probably most people in general in the US) work pay check to pay check (like the Applebee's manager stated in the article). They max out their available credit so that the interest takes up all of the possible slack in their income. Under UBI how to you prevent people from now borrowing more money (spending it on a vacation, clothes, fancier car, etc.), paying all the UBI as…

> Under UBI how to you prevent people from now borrowing more money (spending it on a vacation, clothes, fancier car, etc.), paying all the UBI as interest and ending up back in the same financial situation they were before.

Don't make UBI subject to garnishment/attachment to pay debt and exclude it from income considered available when determining bankruptcy terms. Lending behavior under those conditions will prevent the use of credit you are concerned with, and bankruptcy itself will resolve problematic cases to the extent that lending behavior does not prevent it.

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

#448

Post by puffoflogic »

colechristensen wrote: post #255
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…

Zoning. You link the "zones which employ people" and "zones which house people" to balance so you don't have significantly more jobs than homes. Next you zone for type of housing, where you only allow a certain percentage of the most profitable 1BR apartments to be built, and require those to be above certain size thresholds so that a variety of life situations can actually live in your city. You don't need to "incen…

> only allow a certain percentage of the most profitable 1BR apartments to be built

Ah yes, the "ban return on investment and ban certain construction" method of promoting construction. Works 100% of the time, every time. See: SF, Seattle, etc.

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

#449

Post by gruez »

jprd wrote: post #434
gruez wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Because they are humans that are not legal slaves. Happy employees don't quit, produce more and contribute to their community. In what way is denying all of that furthering anyone's agenda except the craven individual driving it? Capitalism as a zero-sum game is myopic at best. Based on your comment I wouldn't be totally surprised to hear some esoteric argument to support the economic wisdom behind chattel slavery. C…

You seem to be arguing "companies should be nice to workers". I don't disagree that's a worthy goal in and of itself, but that's not what I'm asking/disputing. The whole idea of henry ford story is that paying your employees well benefits them AND the business, a win-win for all. The first part by itself (ie. "that paying your employees well benefits them") is pretty obvious and doesn't need discussing. My original comment is questioning whether the second part is also true, but your comment doesn't address that at all. If that can be proven, then we'll basically have zero opposition to eliminating poverty. Imagine: we get to lift people out of poverty AND billionaires get richer? Who can say no?

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

#450

Post by dragonwriter »

tacitusarc wrote: post #259
bogwog wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI could allow the elimination of minimum wage entirely, along with a ton of other scattered welfare programs that have lots of administrative overhead and the typical middleman industries that leech off of government programs. It’s a no-brainer!

It recently occurred to me that the complex Byzantine structure of the existing welfare state does have one major advantage over UBI: it’s significantly harder to make the entire thing agenda driven. As soon as you have a UBI, there will be massive political pressure to use it for some agenda. Of course everyone gets UBI… …except the polluters …and CO2 emitters …and meat eaters …and porn watchers …and weed smokers …a…

> It recently occurred to me that the complex Byzantine structure of the existing welfare state does have one major advantage over UBI: it’s significantly harder to make the entire thing agenda driven

Uh, no, it's not.

The byzantine structure is because of (and in part to disguise the way that) every component of the system is agenda driven, and often by an agenda rather divergent from the overt purpose of the programs.

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