Opinion The Fall of America is here

Some brands are doing it voluntarily - see Whole Foods (owned by Amazon) and Aldi. As far as I know, they both pay above most states minimum wages and more than their competitors. I think Whole Foods is like $14 an hour.

For those that don't you'd have to ask them. My guess is the short term cost isn't acceptable to the execs and shareholders. American companies seem to pretty much only ever look to the next quarter and never beyond. Which is why Detroit has gotten spanked by Japan. Like GM only thinks "what can we do to boost next quarters sales" where as Toyota literally is planning for 20 years from now.

All that suggests to me is that pay->profit relationship is more nuanced. If it were as simple as paying them more leads to more productivity, everyone would do it.
 
The question doesn't make any sense.

"if we're going to complain about how much a shift supervisor working at McDonald's makes and then also give less consideration to the possibility that they could move over to a different employer and do the same type of job while making more money why be concerned about implementing any of the changes at all?"

I'm not sure what you're talking about. Who is moving to a different employer and the same type of job. I saw the McDonald's thing, so a McDonald's worker moving to Wendy's? Jack mentioned different levels of unionization and I'm not sure where that falls into your question.

You should probably make it clearer because as written, I can't follow your train of thought.

@Edison Exotic was discussing a living wage and asking for higher wages for "essential workers" putting their lives at risk during this pandemic. One of which is a supervisor at McDonald's, Kroger's, or whatever "essential business" you want to pick. If we stick with just the manager/shift supervisors one would expect them to have managerial skills right? The ability to manage people? Adjust work schedules, etc. Apparently these folks continually need raises to raise a family, etc. My comment or what I was thinking about at the time was more about how many different types of businesses use similar supervisors/managers with the same set of skills but in a different industry . . . all while paying more.

It just seemed like folks were implying that once a shift supervisor at McDonald's always a shift supervisor at McDonald's. That there wasn't any worthwhile possibilities to find similar work outside of McDonald's to get paid more.

I'm doing several things at once here at the house . . . maybe I'm just not being clear. At this point who knows. Happens when you get closer to 50.
 
If the question was stupid, you would have answered it by now.
If you weren't trolling, i would have answered it in earnest. Honest questions tend to get honest replies.
 
I get that aspect of this . . . and is partially my argument against raising wages for folks flipping burgers, etc. And I get that most corporations wouldn't be willing to play ball and increase wages without be forced to do so.

It's not just about wages. We'd have to first induce manufacturers to bring the jobs back, which would probably be more expensive than wage-lifting ideas. The whole thing just seems needlessly complex, overly expensive, and certain to have large, unintended consequences. Why not just see what we can do to increase incomes by working with the economy we have?

I guess . . . the exception to this being that as a consumer I can make the choice to patronize a business and pay more for said burger or whatever. The tax wouldn't be our choice.

But if we employ protectionist policies to induce manufacturers to reshore factory jobs, prices for consumers would go up, and they wouldn't have a choice about that either. From the consumer perspective, it's the same as higher taxes. It's just less efficient. To just take an extreme example, the estimate of the benefit of trade with China is $10K for an average American, right? And that's a pretty well-distributed $10K. So the cost to ending it would be about the same, with the hope that we'd then have more sweatshop jobs in America (that would have to pay at least MW). Before this latest downturn, we wouldn't have had enough workers to fill the jobs. So basically, we'd be implementing a regressive tax that costs an average of $10K per person to make some factory owners richer and pull workers away from some industries in order to raise the wages of small number of workers. If that's attractive to someone, why wouldn't they just support a $10K per person tax and give the money directly to fast-food workers?

I was just trying to show that being a manager is a skill that might be able to allow someone to make more money if they could change jobs. In response to this comment you made:

The manager at a welding shop or plumbing business would most definitely (at least in my experience) be expected to make more money than that McDonald's shift supervisor.

Are we offshoring a lot of plumbing jobs? It would apply maybe to some reshored jobs, but not most of them.
 
@Edison Exotic was discussing a living wage and asking for higher wages for "essential workers" putting their lives at risk during this pandemic. One of which is a supervisor at McDonald's, Kroger's, or whatever "essential business" you want to pick. If we stick with just the manager/shift supervisors one would expect them to have managerial skills right? The ability to manage people? Adjust work schedules, etc. Apparently these folks continually need raises to raise a family, etc. My comment or what I was thinking about at the time was more about how many different types of businesses use similar supervisors/managers with the same set of skills but in a different industry . . . all while paying more.

It just seemed like folks were implying that once a shift supervisor at McDonald's always a shift supervisor at McDonald's. That there wasn't any worthwhile possibilities to find similar work outside of McDonald's to get paid more.

To be clear, I was no implying that a shift supervisor at McDonald's couldn't change jobs. I said that repetitive manufacturing jobs weren't worth American wages.
 
@Edison Exotic was discussing a living wage and asking for higher wages for "essential workers" putting their lives at risk during this pandemic. One of which is a supervisor at McDonald's, Kroger's, or whatever "essential business" you want to pick. If we stick with just the manager/shift supervisors one would expect them to have managerial skills right? The ability to manage people? Adjust work schedules, etc. Apparently these folks continually need raises to raise a family, etc. My comment or what I was thinking about at the time was more about how many different types of businesses use similar supervisors/managers with the same set of skills but in a different industry . . . all while paying more.

It just seemed like folks were implying that once a shift supervisor at McDonald's always a shift supervisor at McDonald's. That there wasn't any worthwhile possibilities to find similar work outside of McDonald's to get paid more.

I'm doing several things at once here at the house . . . maybe I'm just not being clear. At this point who knows. Happens when you get closer to 50.
Ok, I understand. I don't think that makes sense either but I understand what you're saying.

Managerial skills are not transferrable across industries. Manager skills are often industry specific, it's bigger than just moving people around and re-arranging schedules. One of the more important parts of being a manager is being able to step in when a lower level worker is out. Or to help a lower level worker complete a job task.

A manager at McDonald's can't transfer industries. They can transfer between fast food establishments, maybe into lower end restaurants. But not into something like manufacturing because nothing learned at the McDonald's will help them assist their lower level employees at the factory. Just like a manager at Google probably isn't an easy transfer to manager at a law firm or doctor's office. The transferring employee doesn't have the requisite skills to manage/supervise anyone (well, maybe they could manage an IT department). But even in tech, it's not that simple.

So it depends on how broad the transfer is. Transferring in retail or sales or fabrication or food services are all doable providing you're staying inside the industry but transferring to bigger or better companies but cross-industry transfers are much more difficult.

Shit, even as a lawyer, you spend 20 years managing a medical malpractice firm, no one is going to bring you in to manage a complex real estate practice. You don't have the skills.
 
True, although not even pleasantries were there for specific segments of the population.

It's a strange time in so much as it seems like the corruption is more out in the open due in large part to the internets and yet the propaganda is thicker and more well disguised than ever and there's more distractions for the general public. The mainstream media is so propagandized that it may as well be government run.

I remember something George Carlin said, along the lines of there being a large selection of choices for things that don't matter but a narrow selection for things that do
bread and circuses...nothing changes much....
 
To be clear, I was no implying that a shift supervisor at McDonald's couldn't change jobs. I said that repetitive manufacturing jobs weren't worth American wages.
And they definitely aren't. Hence why I personally have an issue whenever someone starts saying that we need to protect American manufacturing wages but no other industry deserves wage protection.

They could have their cake if they set the minimum wage high enough that even manufacturing jobs benefitted. But they don't. Because they want to make more than the next guy more than they want to protect the wage floor. Which you can tell because every time someone mentions raising the minimum wage for ALL Americans, someone responds with "Why should X worker make as much as me? I think I'm more important than them."

It has nothing to do with wages and everything to do with relative social standing and that's a stupid economic reason imo.
 
That's absolutely fair to point out. The 'spectacle' that the Oval Office has turned into has unarguably brought with it negative facets, one them definitely being blatant and obvious lies being told on a regular basis. But - consistent with my previous reply - let's remember that egregious lies have been part of American politics for a long time, the most famous example obviously being Watergate. What's currently going on is different than that, I'm just not sure if it's really worse.
yes lies have always had a place in politics, whats changed is what happens when they are exposed. watergate had real and obvious consequences for the president, i think if it happened today it would be shrugged off , and a large section of the press , public, and the party would defend it, hell the whole party would pretend it never happened and if pressed would describe it as "unfortunate" or actively try to spin it as something else entirely. thats the vital and damaging difference.
 
When was Oklahoma hit by a hurricane? Do you mean tornadoes?

Yes, that was a generalization. Hurricanes, tornadoes, whatever the natural disaster may be, you take care of the state. Period.

Yet, here are anti American pieces of shit like Trump and Mcconnell, whose state is always over 100bil in the red pretending as if the states like NY that subsidize them might not deserve aid.
 
And they definitely aren't. Hence why I personally have an issue whenever someone starts saying that we need to protect American manufacturing wages but no other industry deserves wage protection.

I wasn't implying that no other industry deserved wage protection . . . or limiting bringing jobs back to the US to manufacturing jobs.

It has nothing to do with wages and everything to do with relative social standing and that's a stupid economic reason imo.

Not to me . . .
 
To be clear, I was no implying that a shift supervisor at McDonald's couldn't change jobs. I said that repetitive manufacturing jobs weren't worth American wages.

Why? Because the cost of whatever is being manufactured would skyrocket?

Regardless, even though the majority of jobs pushed over seas might be manufacturing it doesn't remove the supply line issues we've seen recently. Would it be expensive to stand up various businesses to meet current needs (of anything) . . . sure it would be. And it might be worth it to some folks to not be reliant on other countries as much.
 
Ok, I understand. I don't think that makes sense either but I understand what you're saying.

Managerial skills are not transferrable across industries. Manager skills are often industry specific, it's bigger than just moving people around and re-arranging schedules. One of the more important parts of being a manager is being able to step in when a lower level worker is out. Or to help a lower level worker complete a job task.

It might not be something common that you've seen . . . and I know how this place feels about anecdotal discussions but hear me out. I have a BS in Environmental Health Science and an MPH in Occupational Health and Safety Management. Over the last 25 years I may have put in 12 in my chosen field. The other 13 have been in various IT positions. I've been program managers and a supervisor in both. For the last 3 years I've been the Chief Information Officer and have been supervising 8 people and providing IT and IT security guidance to 15-20 facilities and over 40 field IT staff.

I learned on the job and developed the skills to completely change "industries".

A manager at McDonald's can't transfer industries. They can transfer between fast food establishments, maybe into lower end restaurants. But not into something like manufacturing because nothing learned at the McDonald's will help them assist their lower level employees at the factory. Just like a manager at Google probably isn't an easy transfer to manager at a law firm or doctor's office. The transferring employee doesn't have the requisite skills to manage/supervise anyone (well, maybe they could manage an IT department). But even in tech, it's not that simple.

So it depends on how broad the transfer is. Transferring in retail or sales or fabrication or food services are all doable providing you're staying inside the industry but transferring to bigger or better companies but cross-industry transfers are much more difficult.

A regional manager in the food industry would definitely have the managerial skills to manage people and projects (to an extent) . . . all I'm saying is that various jobs develop skills that people can use to build on and move to different jobs (with other training). I get it that those opportunities aren't super prevalent, but they do exist.

Shit, even as a lawyer, you spend 20 years managing a medical malpractice firm, no one is going to bring you in to manage a complex real estate practice. You don't have the skills.

But you'd at least have a baseline skill to build on . . .
 
Yes, that was a generalization. Hurricanes, tornadoes, whatever the natural disaster may be, you take care of the state. Period.

Yet, here are anti American pieces of shit like Trump and Mcconnell, whose state is always over 100bil in the red pretending as if the states like NY that subsidize them might not deserve aid.

Declarations of true natural disasters/emergencies aren't always accompanied by money . . . but the often receive other types of aid.
 
Declarations of true natural disasters/emergencies aren't always accompanied by money . . . but the often receive other types of aid.

And this is a situation where there should be absolutely no question about favoritism or states having to exchange something with the federal government in order to receive aid, which is what Trump and Mcconnell are talking about, knowing damn well their base resides in red states that would simply not operate if not for the massive influx of federal tax dollars they receive yearly from higher tax, blue states.
 
This is true. The vast majority of media roundly criticizes President Trump for doing the same things Obama did and does yet while he was President they were completely blind to these things. Under Trump they're fierce critics but under Obama they were fawning enablers.

According to the left-media:

Over-politicization of everything: Started with Trump
Lies, deception, and Narcissism: Started with Trump
Cult of Personality: Started with Trump
Scapegoating: Started with Trump
Stacking courts with ideologues: Trump

The thriving pre-Covid economy: Now that's Obama
I believe the media is harder on the Republican in general but Trump is on a whole other level. A large part of Trump's problems could've been avoided by just keeping his mouth shut(such as not talking about disinfectants being injected or being just a flu bro) but even so no recent president has put somebody like Jared Kushner or Ivanka Trump in charge of anything. No other president has attacked career civil servants like he did.
That's one of his main problems, his supreme court picks, for example, might be ideological but are still highly studied lawyers. But having his incompetent son-in-law managing the coronavirus response is an atrocious decision that smells of the third world.
He lost many of his early cabinet due to incompetency.
as a non american , it strikes me that the country has always fucked over its citizens in favour of the rich and powerful, im not sure about other non americans on this forum, the romanticism of america has cloaked it in a flag and a pursuit of the american dream soundbite. its really no different in that regard from other western nations, but american capitalism has been unfettered and allowed to take its course at the expense of the average citizen.
The US is certainly the most prosperous large nation, compare it with non- or semi-western Russia, Brazil, China, India. But it's really not superior to other western countries anymore, it was for a while after WW2 because they were destroyed, nowadays it's just the biggest one.
 
The US is certainly the most prosperous large nation, compare it with non- or semi-western Russia, Brazil, China, India. But it's really not superior to other western countries anymore, it was for a while after WW2 because they were destroyed, nowadays it's just the biggest one.
We're still better in certain metrics like the dynamism of our multinationals and the influence of our culture globally and research output and whatnot but yeah in terms of living standards we're unfortunately behind. I was talking about this with a friend of mine the other week, he made the point that in 1970 no one in Sweden or Japan wouldn't rather live in the US but nowadays that's not the case anymore.
 
I believe the media is harder on the Republican in general but Trump is on a whole other level. A large part of Trump's problems could've been avoided by just keeping his mouth shut(such as not talking about disinfectants being injected or being just a flu bro) but even so no recent president has put somebody like Jared Kushner or Ivanka Trump in charge of anything. No other president has attacked career civil servants like he did.
That's one of his main problems, his supreme court picks, for example, might be ideological but are still highly studied lawyers. But having his incompetent son-in-law managing the coronavirus response is an atrocious decision that smells of the third world.
He lost many of his early cabinet due to incompetency.

The US is certainly the most prosperous large nation, compare it with non- or semi-western Russia, Brazil, China, India. But it's really not superior to other western countries anymore, it was for a while after WW2 because they were destroyed, nowadays it's just the biggest one.

I agree, in part, that Trump is not doing himself any favors by keeping Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump around although Obama did the same thing with people like Valerie Jarrett whose sole job in the WH was to inflate Obama's already gargantuan ego with blather like this:

Valerie Jarrett said:
I think Barack knew that he had God-given talents that were extraordinary. He knows exactly how smart he is. … He knows how perceptive he is. He knows what a good reader of people he is. And he knows that he has the ability — the extraordinary, uncanny ability — to take a thousand different perspectives, digest them and make sense out of them, and I think that he has never really been challenged intellectually. … So what I sensed in him was not just a restless spirit but somebody with such extraordinary talents that had to be really taxed in order for him to be happy. … He’s been bored to death his whole life. He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.
 
If not for all the wars the USA has been in, in the last 100 years, the country would already have been torn apart.
Thanks to all those wars the people have a common enemy and can rally behind that, otherwise this shithole country would have collapsed somewhere in the last 50/100 years.
And all of this because of your retarded 2 party system, it will always go to extremes and turn out fucked up.
You guys need at least 2 more parties for your far left and right idiots, so that the normal people can vote for reasonable parties, instead of parties with extremists in it.
 
I wasn't implying that no other industry deserved wage protection . . . or limiting bringing jobs back to the US to manufacturing jobs.



Not to me . . .
Which is why I didn't include it in my specific response to you. You didn't say it so it would be unfair to ask you to respond to it. But it is a big part of the general conversation, even if it's not your part of the conversation.
 
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