So, management’s “solution” was to skip the 24hr “burn in”, betting that most of the machines will work when the customer turns them on, rather than go up in a plume of smoke? Because, of course, they can’t build machines without orders in hand, because inventory is expensive. I had supper at Wendy’s tonight. The soda mixmaster dispenser was out of Coke, out of Dr Pepper, out of cream soda. Because, the “JCs” knew that, having already paid, I will settle for root beer.
Steve
We do not need immigrants or to pay anyone much for labor.
Remember we are going to automate everything if labor is too expensive. Every boomer knows that much.
Full of sarcasm. Nothing is going to get automated that will save the day. Yet honest people in need of a decent wage were harangued with that forever.
What will we do in the nursing home without cheap brown labor? Nothing that is not our right.
If our fortunes are built on using people then our own pay or profits are lower. Now it’s time to get workers no one wants low pay. No surprise there. Just terrible planning by the boomers. No one else agreed to be cheap labor.
Oddly, the Me Generation was told getting paid less made sense. Think that one over. It was always assumed someone else would get paid less not society would get paid less. Supply-side economics never was actual economics. Just like Thomas Jefferson never got his slave labor to pay off his debts and died with a mountain of debt.
The Z’s and the Millennials want a society where people are paid more. They control it. Moreso every day.
If you can not afford a nursing home remember when someone gets paid $7.25 per hour they can not even afford a bus ride. It is rude to put your bedpan first.
Not a bad strategy (unless you are 30 with a 30 year investment horizon). The closest historical example of the current period is probably the 1970s, when there were similar problems but (believe it or not) much worse. The Dow peaked in 1966 at about 9000. It wouldn’t pass that level until the 1990s. America was politically fractured (Civil Rights and the Vietnam war). The USSR invade Czechoslovakia in 1968 with much greater success than their current escapade in Ukraine. The Arab nations invaded Israel in 1973. Democratic institutions were being challenged (Democratic convention 1968, Watergate in 1973). A brutal, endless, and seemingly unresolvable civil conflict was occurring with one of our closest allies (the Northern Ireland conflict). Lots of parallels. As a partial consequence of these events, by 1975 real GDP had declined nearly 5% while inflation was at double digits.
Hold cash and invest in the market in 1982 and one would have done well. Long time to wait though and it looks like there were a lot of false bottoms.
On the plus side, things today aren’t nearly as bad as they were 50 years ago. One strategy would be to hold cash and wait until Business Week comes up with another of these covers (note the date):
Nope. There was a sufficiently high percentage of failures–due to various reasons–that not doing the burn-in would cost MORE than skipping it.
You, and pretty much everyone else, SEES the solution very frequently. It is done all the time. I took one look at the existiing backorders and knew the solution immediately. Why? Because I had done that before–and knew WHY it was done. Perfectly rational. People want NOW. Money talks.
So, how do YOU give paying customers something NOW? It is all around us.
What do you say should be done? Why?
I am thinking of myself as a 67 year old with a thirty year time horizon.
The question is no longer how low can you pay to get workers. It’s if there are people willing to work at all. The solution for that is expanding immigration and expanding the work base.
IP
There is a shortage of workers. I agree.
The phrasing willing to work is demeaning to a lot of honest people who are working hard. They just have better-paying jobs.
The boomer decisions have left the boomers with less money. There are ultra-successful boomers that skew the averages.
The point stands people should not have been treated as cheap labor. And people should have had a path to citizenship but the boomers really did not want that because citizens can get paid more than illegals.
No one today will be the cheap labor. No one should have been the cheap labor for decades now. Higher pay would have led to better profits and better retirement arrangements for the boomers.
Nope. Not pejorative. I am not willing to work for others. I have enough money and don’t need more. Might volunteer, and definitely work at getting our property for sale and keeping our investments in proper order, but not wanting to draw a paycheck. Has nothing to do with the amount of pay. And if those people are working, hard or not, seems to me they don’t qualify for the “not willing to work” category.
For example? As in specifics and why is it only applicable to those awful Boomers?
Gotta call BS on applying that to a very large generation. It’s more of a politics thing, IMO, but we don’t do politics here.
Few today will be the well paid labor. Not enough workers is the root of the problem. How we got into that problem is likely more for some political board.
You are getting mired in the past, focused, for some reason, on blaming the Boomers for all that is bad. The only reason to look back is to understand how to move forward. Your blame game is pointless, and as broadly spewed as it is, rather unintelligible.
IP
This is particularly true in those industries where wage growth is highly constrained. Elder care is one example, a service need by a growing number. How much more can one pay care givers and still make the service affordable to the average American?
Perhaps all high school graduates should be required to spend a month harvesting produce to reduce the pressing need for low wage itinerant farm workers.
Frankly I have long thought that graduating high school students should work for a year or two before going on to college, something along the line of Americorps. Particularly boys, who simply take longer to mature. Many totally waste their first year of college on discovering freedom, which they could do in the year or two of paid internships/jobs, complete with the dorm life. Would give them some idea of expenses, need for an education to advance, and get that initial thirst for freedom out of the way without wasting money on classes not attended.
But that’s a different thread.
IP
Several states are busy enabling younger children to work more hours and more types of jobs. Just a matter of time until the “freeedom” lobby lets them quit school earlier, so they can work more.
Steve
Yeah why not chain a few kids up to machines? Sarcasm
This is why we have $33 tr in national debt. The great minds all work alike. Supply side economics no matter how it fails the same people remain uneducated and clueless.
The bottom of the income ladder is still not earning enough to begin the process of really pushing the slope of the debt to GDP ratio down hard.
Working a low end job for a kid can be a good catalyst for interest in higher education. Our kids did those jobs in middle and high school, followed by well paid co-ops and internships in college, which helped them fine tune their studies more in line with their interests, as well as avoiding what they realized they did not want to do. For example, Eldest’s first two internships were in IT, which he realized was not his thing and he swung towards cyber security for his last two internships. He got his first internship at 18, based on his experience in high school, where he was on Team Assist, helping the teachers with their technology. One could call that slave labor, but I would call it experience and paying your dues. His first internship payed $25/hour, but the lessons from an 18 year old interacting in a professional manner with people 2-3 times his age was worth even more. Internships 3 and 4 both offered him a job, though the one he took earning 6 figures right out of college was from yet another company.
It’s way better to do your experimentation early on. When looking for an adult job, it’s great to have work experience that proves you are capable of acting as an adult.
IP
IP
What age group was the middle school? Was it 15 year olds? Technically the first year of high school. What state was this in if it was sub 15 year olds?
Pretty sure Steve was referring to kids below 15 years of age.
Wow, Leap. You seem to think you know a lot about me, all without ever having met me. As usual, you resort to telling people they are so ignorant, making up things about them on a whim, but of course, in a few posts you will say it’s not personal.
My only problem with you is your seeming inability to communicate to others in an intelligible manner. Being challenged on your opinions should not result in your spewing insults. Just because something comes from your keyboard does not make it fact.
IP
You are not speaking about economics. You bring up your own wallet but that is not econ. I encourage you to study and talk econ. That is not an insult. To take it as an insult does not hide that you know nothing about this topic.
You can say what you will it is your problem going on and on.
I don’t think anyone here is advocating a return to child labor. But when I was growing up most all middle and older teens had summer and part-time jobs. My kids found summer jobs in high school. I think it is a very good experience that not enough kids have these days.
Minimum working age in the very blue state of California is 14. The national standard set by the Fair Labor Standards Act is 14. The typical middle school age range is from 11-14.
No one here wants a return to the child labor laws. He is mocking economic pressures elsewhere often with a min wage of $7.25.
Thanks for the tidbit about age 14. It is young but not bad. There are caveats I am sure like how many hours and what responsibilities. Those are stringent.
In PA, our kids were allowed to start work at 14, officially. That was 8th grade for our kids, so Junior High. Prior to that they did work in the neighborhood for us and neighbors, tracking their income and paying into Roth IRAs. They also did sports and marching band, so hours were limited. Don’t remember how many hours a week were allowed. IIRC, at 14 they were limited to being servers at the dining room of a retirement home. It was a good start and as they aged they moved on to other more interesting to them jobs, using the experience to show credibility and negotiate a higher wage.
IP
Sorry, didn’t know you were that young! In that case perhaps dollar cost average? I don’t believe anyone can consistently time the market. Not even people with really fancy charts.