Why robots could soon replace fast food workers demanding higher minimum wage

KIRO-FM's The Curley and Walsh Show ^ | July 11, 2013 | Josh Kerns

[count-your-change]

I going to sell pencils on a New York City street corner and since I’m not interested in no minimum wage, no living wage or any of that stuff, I’m going for the “Living Well” wage.

Therefore my pencils will be priced and sold at $100 each and I will sell at least 12 per very short day. I know that sounds like a lot but this is New York City where a guy picking up garbage starts at about 70 grand a year and you need half a million dollars to own a cab.

But why would anyone pay a hundred bucks for a ten cent pencil? New York City will pass a law demanding the first 12 people I approach buy a pencil or face discrimination charges and fines. Cheaper to buy the pencil, cash or credit card. After all, when the fast food joints are put out of business people like me will have to fend for ourselves.

Now don’t think you’re going to brush by me like you didn’t notice me, I got a hidden camera and a hungry lawyer. You will buy.

Who loves ya, baby!

[DH]

You are what you are worth.....PERIOD!

If you perform a job that requires minimal mental skills and can be replaced in an instant by someone else with the same mental capacity, you are not worth much.

If you use a job that requires minimum mental skills to have the money to improve yourself through education or technical skills, your worth is much greater for a future employer. From there, you can advance your income and living standard greatly and enjoy the life most of us taxpayers currently live.

Unions thrive upon these fools who have no ambition to improve themselves. All that unions want is their dues...nothing more. The higher the pay...the higher the dues.

These are the true Obama voters who think that by voting for someone like him they will eventually be good socialists and enjoy the good life. Well, they are wrong and when their employer closes the door to his business, they will make more on welfare anyway.

It’s amazing just how stupid today’s society is.

I came from an era when America was great, you were solely responsible for your own actions and worked as a child while gaining the skills and work ethic to advance yourself through the course of your life.

Not now, for it’s the Union or Government’s responsibility to do that with this society.

[Jed Eckert]

I remember back in the '60s there used to be Horn and Hardart, the original automat.

[Resolute Conservative]

The world needs ditch diggers too son...

[Resolute Conservative]

“And the prospect of humans becoming blobs like in Wall-E is scary yet possible”

I have been saying that since I saw the movie.

[MrB]

Will they squirt oil in your food if you’re not of their tribe?

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

I have a long-standing ongoing argument with a friend about the “living wage”. She just refuses to see that when a person’s minimum pay is set at some level, it prices them out of the market. She just believes (BELIEVES!!!) that the only reason that wages are set at the current level is because the corporations won’t raise them.

Of course, she’s a pastor and her wage is set by TPTB in her denomination rather than the amount of money brought into her congregation.

The wife a a former pastor of ours had that same attitude. Somehow the sympathy for the person who’s trying to make an honest buck by trying to keep a business afloat just is lost in the shuffle. There she was, laying heavy burdens ad grievous to be borne on men’s shoulders, while admitting that she would not move them with one of their fingers.

Matthew 23:4

For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

- King James Bible

[Cincinatus]

There is a robot yogurt server at Space Center Houston Visitor's Center. Fun to watch and the kids love it.

[Cronos]

daleks v/s Cybermen?

[zeugma]

At even 4 times the $1500 quoted in the story for a type of robotic server, the fast food workers are screwed.

[9YearLurker]

Robots and other automation are now actually helping to bring manufacturing back to the US.

[zeugma]

 

as automation increases (and I'm an engineer contributing to that), I see fewer and fewer jobs for those who are not highly skilled professionals. What is to happen to those who cannot do the highly skilled jobs?

 

The government will come up with some way to use them to keep the rest of us in line.

And also note that I include plumbers in highly skilled -- those guys sometimes can earn more than I do -- and they deserve it!

Until the illegal mexicans drive them out of business just like they have all the construction trades.

as automation increases (and I'm an engineer contributing to that), I see fewer and fewer jobs for those who are not highly skilled professionals. What is to happen to those who cannot do the highly skilled jobs?

The government will come up with some way to use them to keep the rest of us in line.

[zeugma]

Loved that book, got a tattered 20yr old copy of it. Also love the concept, but I would include the police and firefighters that also put their lives on the line.

Really? Is "putting your life on the line" the criteria you'd use? Gotta include cab drivers and fishermen then, because their jobs are many times more dangerous than either cops or firemen.

[GOPJ]

Cheap labor stands in the way of innovation. It’s why the Civil War South was so lame - cheap slave labor. The north had to industrialize. The South didn’t.

If food workers want a hundred dollars an hour - in 3 years the whole mess will be automated...

[Cyber Liberty]

I support this. Robots don’t have salivary glands with which to spit in my food.

[mikefive]

Saw you liked Ender’s Game, another great book. But yes, I do think the thinking of Heinlen in Starship Troopers is spot on. Will we ever get there?, Who knows. Dont know if you read the book; if not check it out, you’d probably like it.

[Flag_This]

I had no idea that the first one opened in 1902. “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.”

[TexasRepublic]

“Well, at least a robot chef won’t get all disgruntled and spit on your food...”

You obviously aren’t a computer programmer. ;-)

[SevenofNine]

Bender if you do get gig at McDonalds don’t mess up my order sweetie LOL!

[balticseaviking]

For sure the illegals have really done a good job of under cutting the contruction trade. I hate to say this, but my son who is a gen contractor in San Diego, has had to start using wet backs as he had no choice, his competitors were all using them and paying 2-5 an hour no benes and he was paying 25 an hour, his bids were, most of the time on the high side, so in order to survive he had to use the wets. Thank you govmint for secure borders.