End of collective bargaining/other anti-union measures plus reactions ...

Until they get replaced by


May I take your order?




Maybe it can be the new Chicago FIRE DP

 

$10 lunch at McDonalds?

 

That would save Obamacare some money if people can't afford to eat that shit (my self included)

 

I doubt it. McDonald meals are overpriced in relation to labor costs anyway. Since they deal in volume, they will have to keep prices down. Plus, investment in retail employees have generally benefitted employers.

 

Don't disagree, but do you have an analysis that supports this? In reality, many illegal aliens are already being paid $10/hr. They are part of the underground economy, where small business owners & contractors dodge their own taxes, aided by a public hiding its own income & assets. How many restauant owners have a second cash register, not wired into their computer system, for cash ring-ups by off-the books waiters & bartenders? How many home improvement contractors forget about permits & taxes, when the homeowner pays in cash, that he doesn't want to report & have taxed? The contractor pays $80 per day cash to laborers & reports nothing to the IRS. That's $10 per hour. If the businesman pays $15 per hour on-the-books, the worker takes home about $11, and the boss has to match the social security contribution & pay for unemployment & worker's comp insurance, as well as report & pay taxes on his own income.

 

Most of these patriotic, non-taxpaying 'Mericans vote Republican too.

 

What I though the Democratic Party had the Illegal immigrant vote in the bag?

 

Illegal immigrant employees, perhaps. But their employers are Republicans.

 

I don't - it's more like a thought-through guess.

Fast food kitchens are ridiculously assembly-lined. Their size allows them to control the supply chains and keep food costs low. Soda and fries, for which they charge hefty premiums for super-sizing, are practically free. The volume a typical fast food restaurant serves is ridiculous and much more impervious to weather and seasonality than other retail businesses.

Granted, there are factors that justify high markups, but for a hamburger-fries-soda combo that likely costs less than a dollar in components, $6+ for a meal combo seems pretty steep.

 

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/12/03/1270541/corporate-profits-wages-record/

 

This piece is about retail in general, but it could apply to fast food as well:

Paying retail workers little better can make a huge difference
Now, the macroeconomic argument is pretty straightforward:

But the second part of the argument is less so:

America's transition from a nation that makes to one that serves is probably irreversible. We have to be less stupid about how we employ people in the service industries.

 

Let's end the Makers/Takers society and change it to the new and improved Servers/Served model.

 

We can all service each other in a big circle J#$%

 

'member this?

 

I didn't know The Onion was around back then.

 

It's hard to believe that ever existed.

 

I know. And until 50-60 years ago the Republicans were the party favored by black people. How quickly things change.

 

Krugman should win another Nobel Prize for pointing out obvious things. Or maybe they are not so obvious.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/opinion/krugman-robots-and-robber-barons.html

 

Despite the well-documented, obvious failure of trickle down -- corporate profits up, corporate wages flat, the top 1% making a bundle, the other 99% not so much -- the GOP is still pushing trickle down.

Pretty amazing that Mitt Romney got 48% of the vote, given that he went to battle with an economic plan that serves only a small minority.

 

It's even more amazing that two dumbshits and a former head of the CIA *won* with with that plan!

 

Eh, we didn't know when Reagan ran for election. It's possible there was something to this supply-side whizbangery. I mean, there wasn't much evidence, so this was mostly an economists' debate. And maybe there even was something to the argument, a bit. Ronnie rode a rising tide but perhaps the tax cuts helped.

Which accounts for Daddy Bush's re-election as well as Reagan's.

Since then, though, there's been no defensible economic reason for the masses to vote Republican.

 

Biden ain't no rock scientist either.

 

That will be 47.3% or rounded down... 47%....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-share-of-the-vote-you-guessed-it-47-percent/