Target, Which Cut Workers' Hours and Doubled Workloads, Shows the Folly in

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This should surprise no one, the workers least of all.

People tend to be paid what they’re worth. A person making say $10 an hour who carps loud enough and gets a raise to $15 an hour isn’t suddenly worth 1/3 more in productivity. Although I’m not necessarily agreeing with what happened, it reflects reality.

Another reality is automation. Demand a raise loudly and for enough $? You get replaced by a touchscreen.

Further, none of these jobs are really for people trying to support families. They’ve become that but that’s not their purpose, any more than burger flippers in McDonalds are.
 
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VonDerTann said:
People tend to be paid what they’re worth.
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That’s actually a myth. Steve Keen debunks it in Debunking Economics.

As for the jobs not supporting families, you are correct. That’s why people often have 2 or 3 jobs. Sadly those are the only ones that tend to be available. Too bad our nation doesn’t support Catholic social teaching.
 
In my very quick investigation of Mr. Keen, I can’t really see any synopsis of why he postulates people aren’t paid what they are worth. I’m sure there are exceptions but I gather he’s saying people aren’t paid what they’re worth. Can you distill to a few sentences why he thinks it’s a myth that people are paid what they’re worth?
 
We must stand up and say “we shall not” accept an economy of exclusion and inequality. The market can no longer turn to remedies that are just a new poison, such as attempting to increase profit by reducing the workforce in turn adding to the ranks of exclusion and inequality

Reference from Pope Francis 2013 Apostolic Exhortation
 
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Yes when I get home. I don’t have the book in front of me.

I am in favor of markets, don’t get me wrong.
 
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Gee! For such a radical progressive company, you’d think they would be a little more sennnnsitive.

I know: blah blah blah the “right wing” stores are jussssst as bad.

OK. So?
 
Target isn’t as ‘progressive’ as they appear. I know a lady who worked for them and they were shown videos about why unions are bad, stuff like that. Just another company trying to appear humane to get more customers.
 
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I don’t think you can fault them for wanting more customers. Businesses that don’t, close quickly.
 
VonDerTann said:
In my very quick investigation of Mr. Keen, I can’t really see any synopsis of why he postulates people aren’t paid what they are worth.
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Why would a company pay someone what they’re worth if they can pay anything less? People are paid as little as possible to keep the position filled.
VonDerTann said:
Another reality is automation. Demand a raise loudly and for enough $? You get replaced by a touchscreen.
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Automation was coming regardless
VonDerTann said:
Further, none of these jobs are really for people trying to support families. They’ve become that but that’s not their purpose, any more than burger flippers in McDonalds are.
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Who decides which jobs are and aren’t for people with families?
 
Unskilled workers take what they can get. Those who can get a better education can get higher paying jobs.

What the Capitalist Billionaires don’t understand is if the workers aren’t making enough money they can’t afford anything beyond the basics. And home becomes a place where you sleep or your car becomes the place where you sleep.

It’s just like the Middle Ages. Wealthy royalty live like kings and the peasants like peasants.
 
gama232 said:
It’s just like the Middle Ages. Wealthy royalty live like kings and the peasants like peasants.
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Where is it just like the middle ages?? Perhaps in Cuba or Venezuela, where the high govt officials are still living well and everyone else is struggling to eat.

In the peasant class of the free market developed world, they have sufficient food and creature comforts that make a middle ages Lord green with envy.
 
With all due respect, Dan, I find your comments rather “one size fits all,” as if a thrown-off line here or there covers all sorts of economic situations.

A company may often pay a worker more than necessary just to keep the position filled; in fact, smart companies do it routinely. A business will do it where, for example, a particular person has particular skills that make them uniquely valuable - say, a salesperson that connects with customers in a way the customers like. I knew a large “white shoe” law firm who kept a very ethnic lawyer employed because they did a lot of work with garbage haulers who liked the ethnic lawyer more than the blue bloods who ran the firm.

Your view seems to view all workers as assembly line widgets, where every worker is the same. The real world is otherwise.

OK, so automation was coming. “Automation” won’t replace workers until the workers are more expensive than the automation - and that doesn’t happen absent some combination of the automation getting cheaper or the workers getting more expensive.

Who decides what jobs are for those supporting families? Why, the market does. The problem is that the whole “every job needs a living wage!” tries to force the market to pay some people more than they’re producing in value.
 
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The average worker in the United States, due to the cost of living, is either living from paycheck to paycheck or has 2 or 3 jobs. Jeff Bezos of Amazon is worth 130 billion. And there are billionaires going for their second billion. For what? To start their own space program?
 
Do you know how many people Jeff Bezos’ companies’ employ?

And BTW, your statement about the average worker having 2-3 jobs or living paycheck to paycheck due to cost of living is likely just made up out of the clear blue sky. Please provide a reliable cite for it.

(In fact even of the 2-3 jobs part is true, it’s likely much more than merely cost of living; maybe it’s, say, too much consumer borrowing; excessive car loans, etc.)
 
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gama232 said:
The average worker in the United States, due to the cost of living, is either living from paycheck to paycheck or has 2 or 3 jobs. Jeff Bezos of Amazon is worth 130 billion. And there are billionaires going for their second billion. For what? To start their own space program?
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When in history has it ever been any different for the working class, they’ve always had less cushion? But there is a difference in their standard of living now vs the past. This is the discussion that matters.

Why are you so envious of Bezos, Bezos didn’t steal his wealth? Are you kicking yourself for not investing in AMZ and getting proportionally rich.
 
VonDerTann said:
as if a flippant line here or there covers all sorts of economic situations.
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How are my lines flippant but “employers pay what people are worth” isn’t?
VonDerTann said:
OK, so automation was coming. “Automation” won’t replace workers until the workers are more expensive than the automation - and that doesn’t happen absent some combination of the automation getting cheaper or the workers getting more expensive.
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Automation is VERY cheap. Factories produce thousands of times more items than they would with manual labor. A machine that flips burgers isn’t going to care if you make $9/hr or $15/hr, it’ll work for next to nothing, combating robots over wages is a losing proposition.
VonDerTann said:
Who decides what jobs are for those supporting families? Why, the market does. The problem is that the whole “every job needs a living wage!” tries to force the market to pay some people more than they’re producing in value.
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Is it at all possible those simply aren’t viable business models then? I could run a lot of successful businesses if I could get labor for $2/hr. So suppose we repeal all minimum wage laws, suppose unemployment spikes so people are out of work and looking, suppose I lobby the government to require people to work if they can if they want to receive any assistance; so now people can take my $2/hr job or they can lose their benefits. Is this a good system? I mean it is for me, the government is subsidizing my workforce, but is it good for everyone else and the country as a whole?

Now, how far off from the system we have am I really describing?
 
“excessive car loans”? Seriously? How many cars does the average person have?

When I go to the local supermarket, there are people there who push carts loaded with goods and who stock shelves. That’s it. Or truck drivers. Low skills equal low pay even if you know how a cash register works. A lot of young people can’t afford college so they take what they can get. Or single mothers who didn’t finish high school.


Do you know anyone who makes 50K a year?
 
Actually, Dan, the “$2/hour and no benefits” describes China to a T.
Why do you think so many products are made there?
 
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