Quote:
Originally Posted by Bownesian
Businesses will not accept a loss in profits to accept more expensive labour on a one-to-one basis. The winning businesses will become more efficient in terms of consumption of that labour (i.e. will automate and/or focus the hours on the higher performers while turfing the low performers), some will muddle by with reduced profits and some combination of labour consumption reduction and the losers will eat the costs with many going out of business.
There will increased spending power from a number of people making up to 47% more than before. This will be offset by a bunch of people making 100% less as their jobs cease to exist through automation and cuts in hours, or their industries shipped overseas. The question is whether the winners will offset the losers or not, but there will be people (and companies and industries) in both camps.
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Companies are already taking these cost cutting initiatives. Companies can only cut back their work forces so much until it, much like it did to Walmart, begins to negatively affect their business. The carbon tax to me has a very interesting dynamic to it, people understandably don't want to have to pay it, but I find it interesting that for the same services to be taxed most people don't mind paying the extra 20-40% when the price of oil goes up and we have a "boom". Because they have jobs at that time? What about the people who work in jobs outside of oil and gas or that aren't laid off when the economy tanks? It's fair that they need to pay more during a boom when it doesn't benefit them? But then when anyone else needs to pay something for that doesn't benefit themselves it's viewed as some sort of atrocity? When oil booms and the price of everything goes up, the middle/lower class has a hard time keeping up, but now that everyone is hurting it's considered an outrage when anyone tries to help those same people because the timing isn't right.