Wage Strikes Planned at Fast Food Outlets in 100 US Cities on Thursday (12/5/13)

crazyewok

Mamatus

No, it's not.

edit on 2-12-2013 by Mamatus because: (no reason given)

Well yes it is.

As I said I worked for a multi billion doller compnay.

Even entry level jobs were good wages.

Yes all those at the top of the compnay still had hundreds of millions.


I would call that win win.

I would have to ask what company and what did you do for them? I ask because your understanding of economics seems a bit out of perspective.

I am not saying I agree with 100 million a year CEO salaries because I do not. At some point people should be taxed 50% or more as greed is a bitch.

FlyersFan
They are the ones who take out loans and invest their own money into a company. So they get the profits.

And yet they still can take huge profits while paying good wages.

I just dont get this silly way of thinking that if those at the bottom get paid enough to actually live on then those at the top lose out. Why does one group have to lose out?

As I said why is it when I worked for a multi billion doller compnay everyone got paid enough yet those at the top still were hundred million and billionaires?

I just dont how giveing someone a good wage and takeing huge profits are mutally exclusive? Unless its a small or medium size business of course.

crazyewok
And yet they still can take huge profits while paying good wages.

- The free market determines what a person can earn from their investment in a business.
- You have no right to determine what is 'too much'' for someone to earn.
- A burger flipper job IS NOT WORTH $15 an hour. It simply isn't. It's an unskilled job that is easily filled by just about anyone off the street.
- Nurses and teachers earn $15 an hour. So why should they get paid the same as a burger flipper when they have a more skilled job?? Answer ... they shouldn't. If burger flippers got $15 an hour, then nurses and teachers would deserve a raise .. and then you'd have to raise salaries of engineers and doctors and lawyers and etc etc ... because they would be worth more pay. Then the burger flippers would turn around and demand $25 an hour. Massive inflation.

I just dont get this silly way of thinking

It's basic economics.

reply to post by crazyewok


Can you grasp that if the cost of operations goes up so does the cost of the product?

Great example, I own my company and I am being sued (wrongfully) for 5k. Should I lose that suit do I go to my employees and ask for them to share the costs? No I don't. What I do is save up a bunch of money so that when that happens I don't have to fire my crew and close my doors.

When I have to buy a new 60k hot air balloon so that my crews have jobs that comes out of my savings. I need those profits so that I may grow and employee others.

reply to post by FlyersFan


The minimum wage "war" is a smoke screen and an illusion to draw our attention away from the REAL problem!!! The devaluing of the dollar and "INFLATION"!

Well played propaganda move to make the little people think their owners care! If they did, they never would have sold out to the corporations and bankers to send our manufacturing jobs overseas and turn our economy in to a service based economy versus a manufacturing economy......

Well with exception of the "military/industrial complex", I hear they are doing quite well under our current government welfare system.......

WAR is GOOD! Being able to survive and make an honest living???? Not so much....

reply to post by crazyewok


In my companies, I pay well over min. wage for entry level positions. In return I get loyalty, dedication, and the ability to trust my people to carry on, when I decide to take off for a week or two and go fishing.

The loyalty, dedication and trust just makes good business sense. Of course I'm a humanitarian and not a greedy pig.

I sold one of my businesses to my employees and they ran it into the ground when their greed trumped their common sense. They gave the business back to me in shambles. Entrepreneurship isn't for everybody.

reply to post by FlyersFan


There's some serious flaws in your reasoning.

Pretty much everyone should be getting more per hour than they currently are.

There's only so many resources out there.

Inflation makes a slave of all but those who are invested in schemes towards the top of the pyramid.

Everyone else's standards of living are declining.

My first post was true. There are more slaves out there who will take these positions; however, that's an incredibly unfortunate truth.

"the free market" hasn't existed in a long time. You're preaching propaganda.

FlyersFan
- You have no right to determine what is 'too much'' for someone to earn.

Never said I had the right, I was just pointing out is possible to have the best of both worlds. Never said about forceing anyone.

FlyersFan
- A burger flipper job IS NOT WORTH $15 an hour. It simply isn't. It's an unskilled job that is easily filled by just about anyone off the street.

Never said it was worth $15 a hour. Just a doller or two extra could make a diffrence. I agree $15 is pie in the sky wishing for the burger flippers.

FlyersFan
- Nurses and teachers earn $15 an hour. So why should they get paid the same as a burger flipper when they have a more skilled job??

Again never said that.

FlyersFan
Answer ... they shouldn't. If burger flippers got $15 an hour, then nurses and teachers would deserve a raise .. and then you'd have to raise salaries of engineers and doctors and lawyers and etc etc ...

I dont know how wages work in the USA but there is a HUGE divide between a burger flipper and a nurse in pay here. There is a whole degree of flexablity for wages in between . A entery level jon were I worked was in between, funny enough I didnt go in at entry level I went into a skill job and I never thought the divide between me and the entry jobs were to small as there was still a huge gap.

FlyersFan
Then the burger flippers would turn around and demand $25 an hour. Massive inflation.

More extremes.

olaru12
reply to post by crazyewok

 

In my companies, I pay well over min. wage for entry level positions. In return I get loyalty, dedication, and the ability to trust my people to carry on, when I decide to take off for a week or two and go fishing.

The loyalty, dedication and trust just makes good business sense. Of course I'm a humanitarian and not a greedy pig.

I sold one of my businesses to my employees and they ran it into the ground when their greed trumped their common sense. They gave the business back to me in shambles. Entrepreneurship isn't for everybody.

edit on 2-12-2013 by olaru12 because: (no reason given)

See more proff that good wages doesnt mean bad buisness.

webedoomed
There's some serious flaws in your reasoning.
... You're preaching propaganda.

Um ... no. It's basic economics. I"m not going to repeat it for a fourth time.
It's pretty basic stuff. Take a few economics courses.

Mamatus

Can you grasp that if the cost of operations goes up so does the cost of the product?

Funny how the price of a can of coke to make was 10p?

Sorry its BS. When a compnay is pulling in 10's of billions this doesnt hold true or have to hold true anyway.

Mamatus
I own my company and I am being sued (wrongfully) for 5k. Should I lose that suit do I go to my employees and ask for them to share the costs? No I don't. What I do is save up a bunch of money so that when that happens I don't have to fire my crew and close my doors.

When I have to buy a new 60k hot air balloon so that my crews have jobs that comes out of my savings. I need those profits so that I may grow and employee others.

Do you own a multi billion doller compnay?

Cause I already said small and medium size business are diffrent and conditions are harder and profit margins thinner.

reply to post by FlyersFan


You can repeat a lie as many times as you like, but I'm not going to be conditioned by it.

Fail.

Mamatus


I would have to ask what company and what did you do for them? I ask because your understanding of economics seems a bit out of perspective.

I already said I worked for Coca Cola

I was a QC microbiologist, not a entry level job but those who were like box packers and lablers earned a reasonble wage they could live on without goverment help.

Isn't this entire mess still going on since 2008?, there is this thing called "short term paper", as in taking out a loan to pay employees by employers, the mass layoffs happened when credit got tight, employers laid off people because they couldn't get the credit to get the loans to pay employees.

Every loan demands interest, and in turn demands more money be printed to cover it, which in turn causes inflation and reduction of the value of all money in the system.

So, what really is the problem here?, Hmmmmm.

There is something fundamentally wrong with having to take out loans to do anything.

It's a damned trap.

FlyersFan

webedoomed
There's some serious flaws in your reasoning.
... You're preaching propaganda.

Um ... no. It's basic economics. I"m not going to repeat it for a fourth time.
It's pretty basic stuff. Take a few economics courses.

Sadly Amiga, the BS they teach in the current business schools is so outdated. It's obsolete now with speculation the current OS and not the law of supply and demand. It doesn't even work on the micro level any more. If I paid any attention to that trite BS; I wouldn't enjoy the success I'm having. I frequently socialize with MBAs cursing their academic education. Now many of them are unemployed or flippin burgers with the homeboys.

webedoomed nailed it....

reply to post by crazyewok

Do you own a multi billion doller compnay?

Cause I already said small and medium size business are diffrent and conditions are harder and profit margins thinner.

That is a valid point! Think of "multi-national" corporations for instance.....

Their first priority IS NOT to their loyal employees "blood, sweat and tears" but to it's "STOCK HOLDERS" and their big payouts to it's CEO and relevant hierarchy! Meanwhile, they also have big connections within the governments where in they pay almost NOTHING in taxes! A small family owned business does not have that luxury! Grant you this isn't about small businesses, however, what IF these unions succeed in raising the minimum wage? How many small businesses operation on shoestrings now will have to close their doors?

Capitalism isn't the problem! It is "CRONY CAPITALISM" that seems to be the "bread and butter" of most of our government officials that is creating a "slave class" of citizens whom DO work, along with another "slave class" of citizens whom hold their hands out for help every month!

Why get angry at each other? Other than the fact they have divided us into two different groups whom act like worshippers of "JIM JONES" and put our lives in the hands of greedy MEN/WOMEN in the government? DO WE SOLVE IT BY FIGHTING EACH OTHER? OR, BY FIGHTING AGAINST THE CORRUPTION IN GOVERNMENT???

Easy choice in my eyes, but as long as we keep blaming each other for which party we belong too, I will just keep on preparing for the upcoming banking collapse and say, "TO HELL WITH YOU ALL!".......

jjkenobi
So say the companies give in to the strike and raise the wages (and the food prices). Then in 4 or 5 years they strike again because $15 isn't enough and now they need $30. Then what? Raise their pay and food prices again? Keep it up until no one can afford a $12 chicken nugget?

well, except that has never happened in the way you describe...maybe a look back at what ACTUALLY happened when minimum wage was raised would be a more reality-based scenario.

webedoomed
You can repeat a lie as many times as you like, but I'm not going to be conditioned by it.

Obviously you have never taken basic economics courses.
No matter how many times you try to say the economics involved are lies ... they aren't.
Facts are facts. Educate yourself.

FORBES - Would a Higher Minimum Wage Help McDonalds Workers?
Nobel Laureate - Robert Lucas

Huffington Post - Business

If we double the employment cost of an organization and double the employment cost of its suppliers, how can we not end up with similar increases in the cost of goods? And if we have proportionate costs of goods, have we not just made inflation? The analyses I've seen that say it would not greatly increase the costs of the goods do not address the staircase of employment.
We also have to consider the ripple effects not just within an organization, but across the employment field. If suddenly flipping burgers is worth $15 an hour, how much more will someone have to pay the kid that mows their lawn? How many people will start mowing their own lawn when it turns from a $50 a week expense into a $100 a week expense?

And finally, fast food jobs are not supposed to provide a living wage. They are intended to be part time jobs for students and retired people. If the system is broken and fast food jobs are all some people can find on which to survive, we need to address that breakage -- not put a bandaid on it by crippling the industry.

The Boston Globe - Business

Still, raising wages for fast-food jobs means figuring out where the money would come from.

Franchisees say their profit margins are thin — they make 4 to 6 cents, on average, for every dollar they take in — and that they can’t afford to increase pay, particularly when companies are trumpeting value menus amid tougher competition.

Kathryn Slater-Carter, who owns two McDonald’s in California, said what franchisees can pay depends ‘‘on what money you’ve got left after all [the company’s] interference.’’

Policy - Economics

Low-skill jobs aren’t low-paying because businessmen are Scrooge-like villains who enjoy seeing people toil without much reward — they’re low-paying because businesses are rational. Virtually anyone can do these jobs with very little training. This means the supply of potential labor exceeds the demand, making salaries low and benefits like health insurance almost nonexistent. But those low salaries are part of what allows fast food chains to have low prices, which helps customers save money and lets the companies be profitable.

Labor activists like to argue that businesses could just endure the costs of a minimum wage hike, cutting executive salaries and shareholder dividends to help workers live a decent life. But that argument doesn’t stand up to the realities of most service-sector businesses. For example, the average fast-food franchise will have a 10% profit margin, and employee salaries are usually around 25% of revenue. Though not all employees make minimum wage — longtime employees get pay raises and store managers average $42,000 a year — forcing franchises to pay $15 an hour would be at least a 20% cost increase.

The average fast food store would go from profitable to unprofitable overnight. Some would close immediately, leaving their workers worse off than they were when working for $7.50 an hour, while others would raise prices and try and remain in business, hurting consumers.

Fail

Funny guy. Right back atchya.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Economists are experts within their respective system. They don't think outside of "the box". The system itself is corrupt. Economics is THEORY, not universal law.

You are entirely missing the point.

*sigh*

Not sure why I continue to bother... it's not for you, but for those who are on the fence and being taken in by your balognai reasoning.

To clarify, the wage itself is but one variable in a highly complex system. Simply manipulating one number does NOT change the fundamentals. That's what the systems experts say. It's a huge DUH!!

That's entirely besides the point. The point is that the piece of the pie is shrinking for the majority of American workers. The economists point to the rigging of the game (unwittingly, it seems), by showing that simply trying to work within the system, and easily change things won't bring you any better results.

Look, I get that you really want to believe in this "free market", but your own posts in other threads over the years have indicated that you don't really believe in it, else don't really know what it means.

webedoomed
The system itself is corrupt. Economics is THEORY, not universal law.

so unless we take the conspiracy theory side of the debate, we are wrong. gotcha.

of course there is mass corruption in business. but this is about raising the bottom line skill level, bottom line job, bottom line pay.
that by definition, is breaking the hierarchy of employment.
why even get a 2 year degree, when every 8 years or so, minimum wage will be raised to meet what you were making with your skills anyways.

everyone would need to get paid more. its not about the cost of goods and services, they will raise regardless of wages and supply and commodities.
its about how much money you have vs another person.
the system will never allow a less deserving person to have more. with or without freemarket or corruption.