Posted on 09/14/2011 7:58:28 PM PDT by Olog-hai
On the September 14 edition of MSNBC's "Hardball," host Chris Matthews admitted to socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that it "sounds Marxist" but he truly believes that automation in the economy has killed jobs by replacing human clerks in CVS and camera operators at MSNBC with "robots":
I don't want to skip to your left on this but.... [W]hen I see automation, when I go to a CVS that used to employ a lot of people just above the poverty level, above the minimum wage. And you walk in there now, it's all machines. Now it's very convenient for the customer, it's all machines. There's a check-out machine, by the way, that talks to you and says "Don't forget to put your CVS card in."
And by the way, I used to have about seven or eight cameramen. I don't have them anymore. It's all automated, it's all robots. Everywhere we go is robots!
You used to go to a gas station, you'd have somebody would check your tires, check your oil. There ain't anybody there, there's nobody working at a gas station! …
So did these robots magically appear, or did people have to design them (both mechanical and electrical), create drawings, procure parts, manufacture them, sell them and service them?
What about the people who design the machines, manufacture them, program them, install and maintain them, manage contracts with raw materials and parts suppliers, those kinds of people?
All the above are wonderful people.
There are a number of people who dont have the ability to do such complex jobs. These days instead of being productive at their level of ability, they are on welfare or disability.
I don’t miss having another human pump my gas, and I hate driving the New Jersey Turnpike where you are forced to sit in long lines waiting for a person to get around to pumping your gas. That REALLY irritates me.
It is similar to the feeling I get when I am stuck in a traffic jam (where there are never any traffic problems) only to find out the traffic jam is caused because they have a policeman directing traffic.
But as for the gas pumpers, some of them wash your windshield...and that’s fine. I also think it is fine if someone wants to have their gas pumped, that they can pull into a spot where someone will come out and do it.
But I HATE having to wait in line to have my gas tank filled. Just hate it.
Even worse, up here in Massachusetts, they have people whose job it is to sit in a toll booth and HAND a ticket to people entering the Mass Turnpike! That is their job. They HAND a ticket to people. Those people are unionized, and you would not believe the money they make.
Makes my blood boil.
Ya and Dept of Education is ruining spelling.
Ask Chrissy Wissy if the ATMs are Jewish.
While traveling by car during one of his many overseas travels, Professor Milton Friedman spotted scores of road builders moving earth with shovels instead of modern machinery.
When he asked why powerful equipment wasn’t used instead of so many laborers, his host told him it was to keep employment high in the construction industry. If they used tractors or modern road building equipment, fewer people would have jobs was his host’s logic
Then instead of shovels, why don’t you give them spoons and create even more jobs?” Friedman inquired.
Plus as things got more automated the amount of products available to the consumer has increased dramatically. We had 75% more guys building a Ford in 1978, but we didn't have ipads, and laptops, and Blu Ray players.
Somebody works at the ipad, robot, laptop, cell phone, and Blu Ray factories. It's just not Americans.
Germany is the largest exporter in the world with just 80 million people, a higher percentage of its population in manufacturing, unions up the wazoo, and high taxes and tons of regulation. Why isn't America with 300 million people?
The problem is, once upon a time, people could get low paying jobs and earn some money doing a job that was worthwhile for an employer to hire someone for.
How often do you see people hired to sweep floors? Sure, there are custodial personnel, but there are a lot fewer of them, and they get paid more. in many places, they are unionized.
There was a time you could get your foot in the door doing some extremely unskilled menial tasks. You didn't make much money, but you could get a start. You could begin to build human capital. The American story if full of people who even worked for free to gain "human capital", and went on to do great things.
When people were hired at entry level positions, those positions were not structured to pay enough to make people want to stay in them. People wanted to move past those positions to make more money, and were incentivized to do so. With the advent of increasing minimum wages and the hideous socialist concept of a "living wage" being forced on industry, is it any wonder those entry level jobs have disappeared?
If I can hire a 14 year old kid at a pittance to sweep the floor, and another young kid to police the grounds, I would do it because it isn't going to break the bank. If I am forced to hire someone who is 16 years old and pay them eight dollars an hour...I just won't do it. It doesn't make sense for my business.
And why should someone be paid a "living wage" at an entry level job like that?
That’s what I miss- having the option of “full serve” lanes. I don’t believe in forced full service for those who don’t want it.
MA is incredibly old school in many ways. I never saw such a scam as the OT put in by people staring into holes doing nothing during the Big Dig.
Unless it was the continued use of the tedious “people movers” at Dulles because they want to retain those jobs.
Hey #attackwatch, I saw 6 ATM’s in an alley, killing a Job. It looked like a hate crime!
Well, I guess turn about is fair play. When people used to turn on the TV in the olden days, they got real news instead of people like Chris Matthews who just repeat the same old stuff over and over. . .kind of robot like. Or maybe, parrot like.
No robots at my CVS either.
I don't know why, but that reminded me of the time I pulled into this tiny station in the mountains along the central coast of California, only a couple pumps. This buxom young blonde gal, looked like Daisy Mae Clampett, cheerfully pumped the gas for me. She had some missing front teeth, was mentally challenged but cheerful and funny as heck. Didn't mind paying the super high price they charged for the gas. Nope, didn't mind at all.
All the peasants should eat shyte unless they curtsey and serve you correctly. It was not quite the way you describe. You are having Freeper dominance fantasies
“Not everyone can do big jobs because of their IQ or mental status. Now we have no little jobs.”
A lot of welfare are reparations payments go to the irresponsible and the lazy who intend to dodge all labor. However many do want to work. But where are the lousy jobs and the good jobs for them. My father had a sheet metal factory which employed 40 lower middle class men. Those kind of men’s jobs are much rarer in America today. This kind of work is mostly done outside of America or it is computerized and automated these days.
So of course all these people will want to live off Gov’t transfer payments rather than starve. They will live off “welfare” of various kinds and supplement that with off the books work and petty crime like drug dealing
You really don't know the answer?
There ain’t anybody there, there’s nobody working at a gas station! …
I read that in New Jersey you aren’t allowed to pump
your own gas.
No, you’re right. It was worse than that. They spilled gas all over a freshly painted car. I’d forgotten about that.
Look, if I’m going to get crappy customer service no matter what (and generally speaking, customer service is all but dead in many if not most places in the US), I’d rather not have to pay extra to have some surly union twit screw me over, both at the point of sale and again when his union contributions fund the opposition at the ballot box. To hell with that, increase the automation levels and reduce the price. I get better service from bots anyway, and if I can’t operate it right I have nobody else to blame but myself. Unlike the slow-arsed (and not speaking in regards to mental capacity) union cashier I had to put up with last night.
When people were hired at entry level positions, those positions were not structured to pay enough to make people want to stay in them. People wanted to move past those positions to make more money, and were incentivized to do so. With the advent of increasing minimum wages and the hideous socialist concept of a “living wage” being forced on industry, is it any wonder those entry level jobs have disappeared?
If I can hire a 14 year old kid at a pittance to sweep the floor, and another young kid to police the grounds, I would do it because it isn’t going to break the bank. If I am forced to hire someone who is 16 years old and pay them eight dollars an hour...I just won’t do it. It doesn’t make sense for my business.
And why should someone be paid a “living wage” at an entry level job like that?
AMEN!
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