A Short Documentary by Mekhali Peyyalamitta & Tim Muliari
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By Ryan Tibbens for educational purposes only
~~ If you do nothing else with this article, watch the Andrew Yang/Joe Rogan video clip linked below. Automation is going to change the world. ~~ I'll begin by saying that I support the minimum wage as an imperfect though well-intended and mostly functional concept. Some even suggest a currency-adjusted, global minimum wage, which has become a point of contention between some economists. (Now that the less-open-minded libertarians among us have bailed, we can proceed thoughtfully.) More and more large corporations are announcing their support for a $12 or even $15 minimum wage, and it should come as no surprise. These businesses include Amazon, Disney, Target, Walmart, and now McDonald's. We shouldn't be surprised because big businesses will always do what is best for themselves and their shareholders: crush competition and generate profits. A corporation's sole purpose is to generate profits through channels that mitigate the financial loss and personal liability of shareholders. As such, these modern giants see the benefit of increasing the minimum wage -- they can afford it, and much of their remaining competition can't. Even if a wage hike doesn't make sense in the short term, allowing government to legislate their competition out of business is a winning strategy in the long term. And since each of these companies is intensifying dependence on automation, they will have fewer human employees to pay soon anyway. [Article continues below.]
A Friend recently shared this article about McDonald's abrupt shift to supporting a minimum wage increase. "By sticking together and taking action on the job, courageous workers in the Fight for $15 and a union have forced McDonald's – the second-biggest employer in the world – to drop its relentless opposition to higher pay," SEIU President Mary Kay Henry said in a statement. "Now, McDonald's needs to use its profits and power to give thousands of cooks and cashiers across the country a real shot at the middle class by raising pay to $15 an hour and respecting its workers' right to a union." My friend went on to point out that McDonald's has cut its workforce by nearly 50%, nearly 210,000 jobs, in the last four years.
Of course, we've all heard horror stories about fast food automation, from robot grill masters that work slower than the stoned 17 year olds they replaced to the poop-smeared touchscreen kiosks (or maybe not). But this is a primary reason McDonald's and other large companies are actually reducing employment. Will increasing the minimum wage really intensify automation? Many people certainly think so, particularly those who oppose the minimum wage in the first place.
So what is going to happen when McDonald's and Amazon and the rest strong-arm the federal government into increasing the minimum wage on their own terms? 1) Big companies can afford the increased wages, at least in the short term, so they gladly pay. 2) Smaller competition goes out of business trying to pay those wages. 3) Big companies receive the surplus business because they've outlasted competition. 4) They use the increased revenue to further invest in automation. 5) Nearly no one is left making $15/hour due to massive layoffs (thanks to automation), so the minimum wage doesn't really matter anymore. 6) We move to some form of universal basic income because, without it, no one will be able to buy food from McDonald's or random crap from Walmart and Amazon. 7) We all admire President Yang's forward thinking -- Andrew Yang for President 2020. 8) Karl Marx replaces Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill. (Okay, maybe not this part...)
Seriously, watch the video.
By Ryan Tibbens for educational purposes only
(Updated 4/28/2020 -- Scroll to the bottom of the article for some GREAT visual demonstrations from other sources.)
I just saw a time conversion that, when I think about it in dollar figures, is absolutely mind blowing. Here goes... - 1 million seconds equal 11 and 1/2 days. - 1 billion seconds equal 31 and 3/4 years. - 1 trillion seconds equal 31,710 years. That means if you have one billion dollars in the bank, you can spend a DOLLAR PER SECOND, every second, or $3,600 per hour, and not run out of money for nearly 32 years; and because of the interest you'll be accruing, it will actually be substantially longer than that. Now, let's think about wealthy people in the news. Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and patron of strip-mall whorehouses everywhere, is worth $6,600,000,000 (billion). If he converted all investments to cash, he could spend one dollar per second, every second for over 209 years, even without earning any capital gains. And, get this, he is only the 79th richest person in the United States. Jeff Bezos is the wealthiest person in the USA, with a net worth of over $160,000,000,000 (billion). That means he could spend a dollar per second, every second, or $3,600 per hour, for over 5,074 years. If we could travel through time (and given his wealth, he probably can), Jeff Bezos could start spending one dollar per second, every second at the beginning of the Bronze Age, and he'd just now be running out of money. The US national debt is currently about $21,974,000,000,000 (trillion), which means we would need to pay one dollar per second, every second, or $3,600 per hour, for 696,791 years to be debt free nationally. The average American household carries something like $140,000 of debt, which means that someone in that house would need to make and spend one dollar per second, every second for almost two days just to be even, just to be out of debt. Something is wrong. Data Visualization from outside sources
Since writing and posting this article a little over a year ago, I have encountered some great websites, videos, and posts that try to make the same point I did above -- big numbers are not at all what most people think they are. Before expressing opinions on issues that include big numbers -- government spending, economic inequality, personal finance, space travel, or anything else -- PLEASE review the sources below. WARNING: Link #2 might be the most startling and interesting, but because of this website's' formatting, it looks the least appealing. Definitely check out #2. Also remember that data changes all the time, so if you want to reference these sources, it is important to include production dates and context.
1) This 1-minute video uses grains of rice to compare hundreds of thousands to millions to billions.
2) This website offers a scrolling demonstration that includes commentary and explanations. Click the link, start scrolling right, read as you go, and keep scrolling right. Then scroll right some more. Seriously, this will blow your mind. https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ 3) This is an oldie-but-goody. It is from late 2012, so the exact statistics are now inaccurate. Unfortunately, the numbers in 2020 are even more uneven and startling. For those who want to put wealth figures into more understandable terms like percentiles, this is a good visualization. (Just remember that the data is old.) 4) This demonstration compares the wealth of some of the leading Democratic candidates for president in 2019/2020. The candidates' names and politics are, for the purposes of the current discussion, less important than the visual comparison of wealth. CREDIT TO http://rossblocher.com/hosted/candidatewealth.html; check out his great work! Keep scrolling down! |
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