Amazon announce min. hourly wage raise to $15

[Vigilante]

Yep. Now that they’ve done it, how much do you want to bet that they start lobbying for it to be mandatory to hurt the competition? They already ride out selling a lot of items below cost, they’ve pushed the razor thin margins on to the smaller proprietors, and now they want to go a step further to crush competition.

The other thread talking about Amazon being a monopoly, I’d say this is one of those counter intuitive, crony capitalist, moves that will shake out better for them despite doubling their cost of their workforce. It is looking more like a monopoly today, than when that thread started. Is a monopoly necessarily bad? No. But the government, ignorantly playing that game, is wildly bad business policy. It’s all desssed up in a pretty bow. “Higher minimum wage, workers rights, YAY!”

Honestly, in this business environment, it’s what I would do.

I’m interested in what @Vigilante thinks about this.

The city of Seattle tried to require Amazon to do this, and Amazon threatened to leave as a result.

How Amazon Killed Seattle's Head Tax - The Atlantic

Amazon continues to invest in automation, with a focus on EBITDA improvement. One of the largest variable costs is that of the employee. More machines equals less employees. If I were a gambler, I'd put money on Amazon cracking the whip on the automation of functions previously occupied by employees.

It's the same as fast food and other unskilled labor. The higher the labor costs, the more automation develops to take your order, flip your burger, and eliminate one of the larger variable costs. ‘It just makes sense’ to replace workers with machines, Jack in the Box CEO says

The net effect of Amazon's higher wages will be higher unemployment. Congratulations workers... you just went from $12 an hour to $0 an hour.

What I haven't figured out yet is how this plays into the feud between Bezos and Trump. But maybe this is even bigger than that. It's likely less about that, but more about casting off heat about being a monopoly. Now you become a champion for the people. Instead of being an enemy and a capitalist, now you are a social justice warrior, and all it really costs you was a few million dollars... a rounding error for Amazon.

The US Department of Labor said in their statement they think it will entice more people to work for Amazon. That presumes Amazon is hiring. Elisabeth Warren, a potential 2020 presidential candidate, has publicly called for Amazon to be broken up. The EU is already holding an antitrust investigation against Amazon.

If you believe what a former president of the United States said about industry... industry is essentially by the people and for the people. Bezos didn't build Amazon, some would muse. The people did, and were supported by the roads, the infrastructure, and even the backdrop of the internet Amazon doesn't own.

Amazon just played a card aimed at stemming the rising bile from the have nots. They just went from an enemy to a socialist darling, and probably bought themselves a few more years of unfettered growth in the process.

Who does this hurt the most?

......

WALMART.

Non-unionized, underpaid walmart workers. Walmart will now be put in a corner.

Amazon has 500,000 employees.

Walmart has 2.1m, of which 1,400,000 are in the US. Walmart has high fixed retail expenses, and you just potentially delivered the most significant blow to them from a SG&A standpoint in the history of Walmart. Amazon has warehouses. Walmart has 5,000 FIXED COST stores in the United States, and you literally just delivered a significant blow to how they operate their stores. Their labor cost is their single biggest expense and their largest variable expense, and overnight you just changed that by 20%.

From a Walmart standpoint this is a nightmare. Walmart's average full time wage is $13 and part time is $10. Walmart is screwed.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Kak]

Yep. Now that they’ve done it, how much do you want to bet that they start lobbying for it to be mandatory to hurt the competition? They already ride out selling a lot of items below cost, they’ve pushed the razor thin margins on to the smaller proprietors, and now they want to go a step further to crush competition.

The other thread talking about Amazon being a monopoly, I’d say this is one of those counter intuitive, crony capitalist, moves that will shake out better for them despite doubling their cost of their workforce. It is looking more like a monopoly today, than when that thread started. Is a monopoly necessarily bad? No. But the government, ignorantly playing that game, is wildly bad business policy. It’s all desssed up in a pretty bow. “Higher minimum wage, workers rights, YAY!”

Honestly, in this business environment, it’s what I would do.

I’m interested in what @Vigilante thinks about this.

 

[GSF]

Yep. Now that they’ve done it, how much do you want to bet that they start lobbying for it to be mandatory to hurt the competition? They already ride out selling a lot of items below cost, they’ve pushed the razor thin margins on to the smaller proprietors, and now they want to go a step further to crush competition.

The other thread talking about Amazon being a monopoly, I’d say this is one of those counter intuitive, crony capitalist, moves that will shake out better for them despite doubling their cost of their workforce. It is looking more like a monopoly today, than when that thread started. Is a monopoly necessarily bad? No. But the government, ignorantly playing that game, is wildly bad business policy. It’s all desssed up in a pretty bow. “Higher minimum wage, workers rights, YAY!”

Honestly, in this business environment, it’s what I would do.

I’m interested in what @Vigilante thinks about this.

And then once they've raised the minimum wage for all their competition, amazon replaces all their own minimum wage labour force with robots lol.

 

[Kak]

I understand your point. But IMHO some large companies are abusing their power in this situation. E.g. Walmart pays starvation wages because they CAN -- because there are so many low-end workers desperate for a job, ANY job. Supply and demand. But they pay so little that their workers can't support themselves, and the workers end up on the public dole for food stamps, etc. Some people call this a "Walmart Tax" because the Walmart workers' drain on the system roughly equals Walmart's profits. Our taxes pay the welfare, enabling Walmart to pay lower wages, so it's effectively an income redistribution from everyone to Walmart. And IMHO that's wrong. Just like a company shouldn't be allowed to dump toxic wastes, forcing everyone else to clean it up, they shouldn't be allowed to dump their financial issues onto the public either.

The whole, subsizing Walmart argument is a bunch of left wing propaganda. Starvation wages? Really?

You are absolutely right they pay the wages they pay because they can. So? Every single person in that store applied for that job, interviewed for it, wanted it, and accepted the terms. Too bad.

There is a market for jobs that do NOT pay all the bills a household could incur. Let me repeat that... there is a MARKET to WILLINGLY ACCEPT jobs that wouldn’t pay all the household bills. Why? Because there are also high school kids “subsidized” by their parents. There are people who want to work in retirement. There are people that want to help out their higher earning spouse financially. LOTS of scenarios that support the MARKET for these jobs.

Gary, what you are saying is that these people don’t matter. Toss them in to higher competition marketplace battling over higher wage jobs, because well, they “deserve” more money. No they don’t. They deserve to be compensated for the amount they agreed upon. They deserve the right to EARN a better job.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Kak]

Wouldn't this eventually cause inflation?

If you raise minimum raise then product cost would go up?

Yes. On a macro level because of supply and demand, not directly because “they pass the price on the consumer” though some of that happens. On a micro level, this is more likely to cause companies to shed employees.

More money in people’s pockets equals more money spent monthly. When the supply “of money” is increased so is demand for what is purchased with it. Supply for those items is lessened relative to the demand, thus increasing prices everywhere, not just at Amazon or Walmart.

As a capitalist, I loathe any form of minimum wage laws. Labor should be an open and free market like everything else should be. But it isn’t... So... As a businessman, I applaud the tact, foresight and ability to navigate our actual business environment shown here.

 

[Kak]

Yes, for now they do. There are still other low-tech jobs available for them.

But I'm not talking about now. In 5 years, there will be fewer jobs like that. In 10 years, fewer still. In 20 years...

If you don't believe my premise, fine. But I think you should take a hard look at how low-skill jobs have ALREADY been disappearing, and how the trend has accelerated, before you dismiss it.

Yes the trend you have discussed, will continue. Certain jobs will go away and they will find other jobs. Gary, you’re just going to have to trust me on that one. It’s been disproven, you’re wrong. It has already happened over and over and over.

Everyone will find their place as long as the labor market stays some form of open.

Creative destruction only improves the average standard of living.

From investopedia:
“What is 'Creative Destruction'?
Creative destruction, a term coined by Joseph Schumpeter in "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy" in 1942, describes the "process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one." This occurs when innovation deconstructs long-standing arrangements and frees resources to be deployed elsewhere.”

Key... “Deployed elsewhere”

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Kak]

And then once they've raised the minimum wage for all their competition, amazon replaces all their own minimum wage labour force with robots lol.

Dead on, then raise their “wages” to $25 and start the loop over.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Kak]

You're still missing my point.

Yes, I totally agree it has worked this way IN THE PAST, and it will continue to work that way in the near future. But I assert the rise of AI changes the equation in a fundamental way. "This time it's different."

In the past, new technologies meant the streetlamp lighters and ice delivery men and elevator operators lost their jobs, so they went to other jobs. New technologies replaced the low-skill workers in those SPECIFIC jobs, but other low-skill jobs were still available for them to move into.

In the future, low-skill jobs will go away not just because new technology replaces a FEW jobs, but because AI-based automation can potentially replace the low-skill workers in nearly **ALL** low-skill jobs. And they very likely will, because the automation will be cheaper and more effective. Market forces will ensure automation replaces humans wherever it's economically advantageous or demonstrably superior. (E.g. self-driven cars aren't perfect but they're **already** comparable to human drivers and they're improving rapidly. Who will hire a human driver when the truck itself is 10x safer and doesn't need rest breaks?)

If **ALL** low-skill jobs disappear, then where do those low-skill workers go? They can't be retrained to be computer programmers. Some people are only cut out to drive a truck.

In my opinion, the only points of uncertainty in this scenario are how fast it happens, and how MANY low-skill jobs go away. Initially it won't be that many, and things will continue to work the way you say. But over time, more and more low-skill jobs will fall to automation. There will be fewer and fewer low-skill jobs available. Automation will probably (?) never replace 100% of all low-skill jobs, but it won't take 100% to cause massive societal upheaval. We will have a permanent underclass that is UN-employable in almost any *available* job.

And then we have to consider the HIGH-skill jobs. The low-skill jobs tend to be the easiest ones to automate, but white-collar jobs aren't safe either. IBM's Watson can already do a passable job of medical diagnosis and many legal procedures. It's not ready to replace all the doctors and lawyers yet, but...

You do realize people said the same exact thing over and over through history? Every single stage in the development of modern civilization has alarmists like you with baseless claims spewing unverifiable conjecture. "Machines are gonna take our JERBS." No they are not. "This time different." No it's not. Someone has to build and design and program and maintain and deliver and adjust and fix said machines. Wow, new Jerbs!

You keep saying your opinion. Your opinion is this. Your opinion is that. The only thing your opinion on this matter is, is baseless.

I fully understand what you are saying and completely disagree.

As long as people consume and the labor market remains open, there will be opportunities for all willing and able. They might need different skills. They might need different knowledge, but there will be opportunities.

The world changes. We adapt. Period.

 

[SquatchMan]

If I’m not mistaken Amazon says in the article here and in the WSJ that they have already begun the lobbying process. All in an attempt to look like a champion of the people.

I think it’s brilliant, now, with or without congressional action, Target and Walmart look like the bad guys while Amazon is “pro-employee” the biggest question I see now is when they inevitably follow suit do all three simply pass the cost on to the consumer, at which point the cry will be that $15/hour is not enough and now they want $20.

Wal-Mart and Target will pass the cost onto the consumer.

Amazon won't. "Your margin is my opportunity."

Remember, only 250,000 Amazon employees will have a wage increase. Wal-Mart has like 1 million people.

Yet again, Bezos outsmarts the competition. He probably turned The Washington Post into The Bezos Blog with this, and anti-trust, in mind.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

"Amazon WILL raise company's minimum wage to $15 for all US employees"
Amazon to raise wages for more than 350,000 employees

Oh great, now I know how they paid for it when they changed their ACX bounty terms that will cost me nearly six-figures this year.

 

[Kak]

Yes, and it will only accelerate. We as a society need to recognize and plan for the fact that, sooner than you might expect, automation will take over a large percentage of formerly-human jobs. The lower-end, less-challenging jobs (fast food jobs, janitors, etc) are the low-hanging fruit for automation. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that a large portion of society is really only able to hold down those less-challenging jobs. They may be perfectly lovely people but they're not rocket scientists and they can't retrain to IT jobs. Fairly soon there will not BE any jobs that those people can handle. A large percentage of the population will become UN-employable. That's a recipe for (even more) political unrest. And of course our government is utterly clueless and is not thinking about this at all.

I'm not sure where the entrepreneurial opportunities will be in that environment. I assume we will have to extend the welfare system to a "guaranteed income" solution, otherwise we'll have 10's of millions of people starving on the streets. Once those people have a living wage, then there will be demand for entertainment to keep them from going crazy and burning the place down, but that's a long way down the road.

Creative destruction equals the advancement of civilization. Your theory of mass unemployment due to creative destruction has been disproven for centuries. There will be opportunities, as long as the labor market remains open and people still want to consume. Isn’t that cool?

 

[Kak]

Here are some overarching questions for those of you that think AI will take over...

Why don't we use robot soldiers? Why doesn't the enemy? Why aren't battlefields filled with robot soldiers killing each other? Why wouldn't this matter even if there were?

Using that same logic. Why does AI exist? To provide value? Yes, but to whom? Other AI? Or people?

The economy runs on consumption. If there are people consuming what AI makes, their money is coming from what? Thin air? Or a job?

Saying AI is going to take over is putting the cart before the horse. First the jobs will move, then AI will serve to benefit in ways it can.

Would you invest in a robot that made motorcycles if no one could buy motorcycles?

Value will remain because people want things. Things will certainly change, but I'm not worried about 90 IQ people any more than I already am.

 

[MTEE1985]

Yep. Now that they’ve done it, how much do you want to bet that they start lobbying for it to be mandatory to hurt the competition? They already ride out selling a lot of items below cost, they’ve pushed the razor thin margins on to the smaller proprietors, and now they want to go a step further to crush competition.

The other thread talking about Amazon being a monopoly, I’d say this is one of those counter intuitive, crony capitalist, moves that will shake out better for them despite doubling their cost of their workforce. It is looking more like a monopoly today, than when that thread started. Is a monopoly necessarily bad? No. But using the government to crush competition is bad for business and the consumer. It’s all desssed up in a pretty bow. “Higher minimum wage, workers rights, YAY!”

I’m interested in what @Vigilante thinks about this.

If I’m not mistaken Amazon says in the article here and in the WSJ that they have already begun the lobbying process. All in an attempt to look like a champion of the people.

I think it’s brilliant, now, with or without congressional action, Target and Walmart look like the bad guys while Amazon is “pro-employee” the biggest question I see now is when they inevitably follow suit do all three simply pass the cost on to the consumer, at which point the cry will be that $15/hour is not enough and now they want $20.

 

[biophase]

The traditional solution to all of this was unions, for the same reason absolutely monarchs were checked by democracy. They have more power because of their size and their money, you counter-balance that with your power in numbers. If you work somebody to death, the union will make you pay. If you reduce someone to pissing in bottles to guarantee they'll feed their kid this month, the union will make you pay. If you work someone until they collapse, and then fire them because "they're not meeting KPIs" the union will make you pay. You can jam your boot in one poor clueless wretches neck, but not if the other 100,000 wretches respond accordingly in unison. One worker standing alone has zero bargaining power against a massive organization. But "we'll all take you down with us" makes the power-hungry think twice.

My experience with unions.

One day I was at work and the light above my cubicle went out. I stepped on my desk to change it and my boss said, you can't do that, it has to be a union person. If you change that light bulb, you took away a job from a union person, we can get fined and we have to pay the union person the amount he would have gotten for changing that bulb. So I had to wait a day in my dark cubicle to wait for that bulb to be changed. From that day on, I'm was on the f!ck union train.

I've worked in many places that were union only. One day we were in a data center in downtown Chicago taking measurements, got kicked out by some union contractors working next door. We were down there doing cabinet layout so we could finish our RFP on hiring out the data center build. Later they found out that we were bidding out this job to a bunch of union companies, including theirs, and they came back to apologize. They wanted a chance at winning the $100k contract. LOL, like they had a chance after that.

 

[Kak]

@GoGetter24 sorry I forgot to give you shit on your love for labor unions. Evidently you were on my ignore list for some other “stroke of brilliance.”

The sole purpose of a union labor force is to preform as little work possible for as much pay as possible under the guise of “collective bargaining and worker’s rights.” They are simply terrible for business and industry growth. If you didn’t know this, you’re probably someone that should worry about AI.

This thread bores me now.

 

[biophase]

Well, here goes.

I lived the technology age. I was in the office machine business for over 20 years. I started out when manual typewriters were common, and I ended when personal computers were common. I sold and fixed every office machine made within those eras. That's a lot of technology. I witnessed the evolution first hand, in fact, I did more than witness it - I lived it. It didn't end well.

Here's the truth of what happened - not just a graph or a study.

I'll explain the technical side, which will meet up with the sale side in the end. I was a component level electronic technician. You don't know what that means probably, because there is not a need for them anymore. It means I repaired a circuit board, instead of replacing it. That required a very highly specialized and advanced skill set. Eventually the manufacturers started using their own custom components, which I could not buy. These were mostly IC chips that consolidated many individual circuits into one chip. Then, to make things more complex, they invented multi layered circuit boards and surface mount components. That's rather complicated to explain here, so google it if you want details. The end result was that now we had major components that were UNABLE to be repaired. The only option was to replace them. Shooooo - hear that sound? That's the entire service department becoming obsolete and losing its income stream which supported the business. Not good. There might be a graph for that somewhere.

Then it became even worse. Soon afterwards, the entire MACHINE sold for a price point that make it replaceable, instead of serviceable. Now the Wal-Marts and the K-marts could sell computers right off the shelf. No need for dealers that offered repair and support anymore. The business became a commodity market.

What was the end result? MANY manufacturers went out of business because their dealer network dried up and went away. Of course the dealers all died. The business became completely automated and machines were punched out on an assembly line in China and were sold through department stores and by mail order (Amazon, NewEgg, etc.) An entire industry was wiped out. Soon after, software followed, and it too became a commodity. Today software has evolved further and there are free versions of software that are just as good as the premier programs. I know because I use a few of them. Any technical support is farmed out to India and they have a checklist to help you. Is your computer plugged in? Do you have a display? Do you have a keyboard hooked up? Still doesn't work? Your machine needs repair. Well, that was certainly useful information! Thank goodness for those highly trained "technicians." Ad nauseum.

So what we have is the service sector being destroyed first, which led to the eventual slaughter of the sales sector by becoming a commodity market. All in the name of progress. Another industry absorbed into the Wal-Mart consortium. Now Wal-Mart is fighting Amazon. Soon, retail may consist mainly of the mega-factories in China shipping their products here, with someone stocking shelves, and someone packing and shipping the goods. Oh wait - we have that already, don't we? I don't see any good paying jobs in that marketing chain. Everyone makes pennies on the products, and works on scale.

So I, and the entire industry, took our highly refined skills of troubleshooting the most complex machines ever built, and we are now free to "do whatever we want to" because technology has replaced our jobs. I want to paint pictures of flowers. Oh, but I need a job still. Too bad my skills are no longer in demand, in spite of them being so highly advanced.

Pity the people that don't have the skill set I do. It's not just the particular skills that I have, it's the ability to fix any machine made; the ability to figure out anything mechanical, electrical, or electronic. Pretty heavy duty skills there. Get ready for this little enigma: Technology destroyed the technology business. Give that one to your wind bag professor to figure out. I'm sure he'll be able to expound on it for hours, complete with charts and graphs up the wahzoo.

Of course, there are advantages. The computer I am using right now is state of the art. I have a printer that can print, copy, scan, and fax. This printer cost me less than $200, and it vastly outperforms machines that used to cost over TEN times as much. All good right?

Nope.

When everything goes on-line, then we'll all know, and see how few jobs there are, and the ones that remain will be menial. Someone has to refill the Coca-Cola syrup at McDonalds!

But, we can all get better jobs! The world will be a better place. Okay - let's look at the better jobs.

Lawyers are already being replaced with pre-paid legal services that you pay a monthly fee for. Travel agents, banks, mortgages, stock brokers, accountants - all automated; online somewhere way up in the cloud.

Even your own video of an automated lawn mower is a good example of what technology can do. I was also in the spa/pool business for a short time too - it had automatic pool cleaners. Of course. No surprise.

Instead of telling us how great everything is going to be, how about some real answers on how that's going to happen?

I don't see it turning out to be good, and I'm an expert. What makes me an expert? I was there. I lived it. Nobody was more engrossed into the evolution of technology than I was. And I saw it all crumble right before my eyes. Can't argue with facts of what actually happened. But I have a feeling you will anyway.

You can pull out a half a dozen graphs to prove macro trends. That's not of any help whatsoever to anyone in the here and now. Maybe people can be graph makers, and survey takers that get the information to make the graphs? Ooooops - nope. That's automated too.

There is some good news. Nothing will replace the trades. We will always need plumbers, electricians, and builders. But even those are being converted to a commodity market. I work with builders. They don't hire union workers that are paid well. They hire companies that source the work out to untrained people. Any job can be reduced to a list of how to do it, and that's exactly what they do. One week someone is asking if you want to super size your meal, and the next week they're painting, wiring, or shingling a half million dollar home, for two dollars more an hour!

I'll take on your academia staff that you so dearly love, any day. They better have a lot more than generic graphs and studies though.

What I get from your story is that these things are going to happen. We can't control or predict what the demand for our skills will be in the future. I think that's the problem with the work force that is afraid of losing its jobs to technology.

Your mistake, which you would not have even known, was becoming too specialized in something that could go away. But there's no way you would have been thinking about that while working your job. Before I left the corporate world all I knew were skills of my specific job. I thought I knew alot. It wasn't until I started a business that I saw that my little corporate world knowledge was sooooo tiny and soooo specific. In fact, my friends are realizing that now as they are now 15-20 years into their careers. Go from a xyz specialist to running a company and you've just opened yourself up to a huge influx of knowledge and skills that you didn't know you needed before.

I certainly don't believe that my current knowledge in 2018 will be enough to keep my business afloat in 2030. There's just no way that can be true. But I also have no idea what I should be learning now. So what I do is keep up with everything and read and learn. That's my current job.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Raoul Duke]

Yep. Now that they’ve done it, how much do you want to bet that they start lobbying for it to be mandatory to hurt the competition? They already ride out selling a lot of items below cost, they’ve pushed the razor thin margins on to the smaller proprietors, and now they want to go a step further to crush competition.

The other thread talking about Amazon being a monopoly, I’d say this is one of those counter intuitive, crony capitalist, moves that will shake out better for them despite doubling their cost of their workforce. It is looking more like a monopoly today, than when that thread started. Is a monopoly necessarily bad? No. But the government, ignorantly playing that game, is wildly bad business policy. It’s all desssed up in a pretty bow. “Higher minimum wage, workers rights, YAY!”

Honestly, in this business environment, it’s what I would do.

I’m interested in what @Vigilante thinks about this.

 

[Jaden Jones]

The costs will just get past on to everyone else anyways. Look at examples like Seattle, where minimum wage went up, the big guys stayed around while the little guys got pushed out and the cost of living eventually goes up to compensate. Amazons prices will as well.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Kak]

I see and agree with your point. But IMHO this is an early symptom of the syndrome I described above. Many of the jobs at Walmart fit into those low-end jobs I described. There is already more competition for those jobs than supply. A lot of breadwinners take those jobs because they haven't found any better alternative. They're already starting to get squeezed out of the job market but they can't afford to do anything else. There's a lot of civil unrest fomenting around this issue already, and it will only get worse.

I don’t know where you are seeing this... We have LOW unemployment right now. Low underemployment.

A truly open and free labor market would leave not one willing worker unemployed. So I would continue to say that we could employ the rest of the 5 percent of whoever wants a job if we got rid of minimum wage.

But that isn’t going to happen, people who can’t think deeply enough into the issues are going to continue to tout government as the solution... worsening the problem.

 

[Bryan James]

Technology has always been the fastest growing industry within the lifetime of the human species. When our cave-dwelling ancestors first discovered ways of prolonging their likelihood to survive and get food, etc. it was due to some form of technology. Due to wars and natural disasters and economic crashes, etc. technological advances rise and fall, but ever since the very beginning it keeps growing. Technology is both the past and the future, always has been, always will be.

 

[Kak]

It's come out: they're doing it to absorb workers from other companies. Nice tactical evil. They've gotten rid of the stock and bonus system, which applied to workers already there, to pay for raises for entry-level workers, to stock up ready for holiday season and draw workers away from other companies. And on top of it they got to pretend it was for the common good and out of the goodness of Bezos' heart.


It should, but there should be some forms of social safeguards against what big companies do.

We've seen with companies like Uber how they use power & knowledge asymmetry to straight up consume people. And sure, the government getting involved hurts things. But someone should be involved.

Traditionally this was the role of unions. It seems that in countries like America the corporations have successfully managed to suppress union power, and Amazon workers urinating in bottles, and Uber drivers making less than minimum wage, has been the result. There's nothing anti free market about a union: it can be a creature of contract.

Unions should be much more widespread and there should be much more innovation in the union space beyond just the odd threat of a strike here and there.

I fully intend to address this nonsense tomorrow.

 

[Kak]

Enough arguing. You have your opinion, I have mine.

Totally agreed. I highly respect why you have to say on a LOT of topics. Let me suggest a book for you that you might enjoy on this topic.

I realize I'm up in my head a bit on this, frustratingly I must admit that this book is a LOT better at explaining this than me.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007PEUQFI/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[DVU]

We've seen with companies like Uber how they use power & knowledge asymmetry to straight up consume people. And sure, the government getting involved hurts things. But someone should be involved.

Why?

If they don't like their jobs they can quit.

We live in a capitalistic system where you are paid your worth.

Anyone with 4 years of education can stack boxes in amazons warehouse. Just because there are bad conditions and low wages there doesn't make it unfair.

If they don't like it they are free to start their own amazon with 30$/h for box stackers and happy singing hours.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ChrisV]

At the end of the day AI is going to serve us... it’s here to do our bidding.

On a macro level it’s going to be a net positive for humanity, for sure.

(again, if they decide that they likes us and want to keep us lol)

AI, is probably going to be the best thing that happened to humanity in history.

But there’s going to be a timeline of events where we have to guide it in the right direction until things settle into place.

U.S. Unemployment Rate Falls to Lowest Level Since 1969 U.S. Unemployment Rate Falls to Lowest Level Since 1969

Oh my! That AI is so scary.

Not now. The singularity hasn’t hit yet. Real AI doesn’t exist except in very very simple forms (Netflix recommendations.. which is really just statistics and math.) The singularity is defined as when AI surpasses humans in intelligence. What that means exactly is a little fuzzy but, it’s likely to be a gradual processes...

And again it’s not scary. At the end of the day it’s going to net positive for humanity, but we just have to be thoughtful of the details. And we’re going to have to be careful while the transition is being made. Think about it @Kak .... this in the future but, as an employer are you going to want to buy a Workerbot 9000 for a one-time fee of $999 or are you going to want to pay some unskilled worker $500/wk for the rest of his life. It’s literally a no brainer.

The good news? People are going to be out of work. The bad news? People are going to be out of work.

The good news? AI is going to do all our tedious tasks for us, so we can spend more time with our loved ones

The bad news? We have to figure out how to make that transition.

If all goes well, we’re going to be able to sit back and sip margaritas while our little robot slaves do all our bidding and mow our lawns (which is actually possible now)



But then similar machines are going to cut our hair, fill our gas tanks. And @Kak is right.. there is going to be a need for engineers and programmers to help develop these. But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking we can just pluck some retarded Walmart greeter with a monotooth and just have him learn to backpropagate neural networks in scikitlearn. I mean forum member @lowtek is picking up Machine Learning and dude has a PhD is physics. Machine Learning isn’t for the faint of heart. I was picking it up and it’s complex stuff. Certain things gave me a headache me at first and I have an IQ in the 90th percentile. I mean maybe there are some tedious programming tasks that are less complex than anyone can handle, but if they’re that tedious, you can likely just get the computer to do them.

Humans, as workers, are going to be rendered obsolete in the same way that CD drives replaced floppy disks. Maybe it will happen slowly enough that

But humans will be replaced. It’s not the printing press where you still need a human to push things on their own. Humans will almost completely be unnecessary except in the rare cases where a decision needs to be made. but even that AI will eventually be able to do.

At the end of the day, everything will be fine but we’re gonna have to handle this correctly.

 

[ChrisV]

And that’s where @Kak is 100% right...

It’s just going to continue an upward trend of technology and lift people out of poverty the same way we’ve seen for the past 150 years, but probably at a more exponential rate.



Source: Global Extreme Poverty

Despite are also getting happier as technology progresses*:





Happiness and Life Satisfaction

*That’s at a macro level... at a micro level there are some studies showing that for instance, Facebook can increase the likelihood of you being depressed. But that’s a whole nother topic. At a macro level, happiness is going up with Technology

It gets better..





This is all a result of technology.

So next time you hear some idiot college kid make an emotional rant about the perils of capitalism and globalization, show him those stats. How that relates to AI is AI is going to take that rate and make it even more exponential. And then you have projects like neuralink.

But again, we’re just going to have to be mindful of the transition. At a macro level it’s going to lift people out of poverty and increase the standard of living for everyone, but at a micro level we just have to watch as AI starts taking over those low level jobs. It’s a Republican “-ism” that ‘as long as there are people willing and able to work, there will always be jobs for them’ but the data doesn’t completely support that. Especially with minimum wage laws. Someone with an IQ of 81 is not worth $11/hr, and definitely not $15/hr. So those laws are actually the worst thing for those types of people. Clip: Milton Friedman on minimum wage.

 

[ChrisV]

Well that was quite the novel.



@Kak - i will never forgive you for not answering fast enough. Ever.

 

[Seth G.]

Well if we can ‘take care of the poor’ in a way that encourages them to provide value, the there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s the idea of ‘something for nothing’ that’s the issue.

That's the purpose of societal safety nets fundamentally.

Coming from someone who has lived through abject poverty, I can tell you sincerely that it is not a place that is easy to get out of. In fact, most people simply don't have it in them to do it themselves.

The purpose of those programs is to stabilize the environment such that the person can come back to a place of creating value. There exist people who are legitimate leaches who never want to do shit for shit about shit and those people are obviously shit. But most of them, genuinely, are struggling to get by (self imposed as their exile might be) and through a Maslow Violation, most genuinely need the little societal boost.

The bad archetypes exist just like the greedy scrooge mcduck archetype wealthy person exists. They exist. Maybe. I've never met either archetype embodied. And if I thought I had, a few minutes of empathetic conversation revealed that to be a false assumption. Most everyone is somewhere in between...

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[ChrisV]

That's the purpose of societal safety nets fundamentally.

Coming from someone who has lived through abject poverty, I can tell you sincerely that it is not a place that is easy to get out of. In fact, most people simply don't have it in them to do it themselves.

The purpose of those programs is to stabilize the environment such that the person can come back to a place of creating value. There exist people who are legitimate leaches who never want to do sh*t for sh*t about sh*t and those people are obviously sh*t. But most of them, genuinely, are struggling to get by (self imposed as their exile might be) and through a Maslow Violation, most genuinely need the little societal boost.

The bad archetypes exist just like the greedy scrooge mcduck archetype wealthy person exists. They exist. Maybe. I've never met either archetype embodied. And if I thought I had, a few minutes of empathetic conversation revealed that to be a false assumption. Most everyone is somewhere in between...

*rubs eyes* this is really a classic case of the right hand not knowing itself from the left. I've been poor. You can't just leave. Genuinely. Or more readily (in our language), you can't possibly see that you could just leave. So many people don't have the same level of self ownership and self actualization that we enjoy and deploy at will.

But you’re still offering them an opportunity they wouldn’t have otherwise had, and they willingly took it. They decided ’this option is better than my other options and i choose to take this job.’ So much so that they probably worked really hard to prepare for the interview.

Yes life is hard. Sometimes it sucks. But up until the 1700’s humans lived on an average of THREE DOLLARS per day in 1990 dollars. That’s adjusted for everything.

OFF-TOPIC - The fascinating history of income in one chart.



It’s not the fault of employers that life is hard. And by paying you more they have to jack up their prices, then products cost more, then people can’t afford those products then they want ANOTHER minimum wage hike and the cycle starts all over. They're chasing their tail. Just offer more value then everyone is in a better position. It’s like freaking alchemy. You’re turning base metals to gold.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[bilkar1985]

"Amazon WILL raise company's minimum wage to $15 for all US employees"
Amazon to raise wages for more than 350,000 employees

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[garyfritz]

Amazon continues to invest in automation, with a focus on EBITDA improvement. One of the largest variable costs is that of the employee. More machines equals less employees.
It's the same as fast food and other unskilled labor.

Yes, and it will only accelerate. We as a society need to recognize and plan for the fact that, sooner than you might expect, automation will take over a large percentage of formerly-human jobs. The lower-end, less-challenging jobs (fast food jobs, janitors, etc) are the low-hanging fruit for automation. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that a large portion of society is really only able to hold down those less-challenging jobs. They may be perfectly lovely people but they're not rocket scientists and they can't retrain to IT jobs. Fairly soon there will not BE any jobs that those people can handle. A large percentage of the population will become UN-employable. That's a recipe for (even more) political unrest. And of course our government is utterly clueless and is not thinking about this at all.

I'm not sure where the entrepreneurial opportunities will be in that environment. I assume we will have to extend the welfare system to a "guaranteed income" solution, otherwise we'll have 10's of millions of people starving on the streets. Once those people have a living wage, then there will be demand for entertainment to keep them from going crazy and burning the place down, but that's a long way down the road.