Alberta Politics Thread

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

No but at the current wage an employee has to pour 8 drinks/hour to cover his wage, if he pours 2-5 more he has likely covered the utility charges for that hour as well. At $15/hour he has to pour about 11 cups per hour to cover his wage.

But that just covers his wage, what about overhead, or the guy that reloads the machine or the person that sweeps the floors and cleans the tables, and the managers salary, and the utilities build and IT costs? Or the guy that comes in at night to clean and do maintenance. Those all come out of the sale of the pop as well.

Suddenly are we talking about selling 20 pops in an hour to cover that or 25?

And if we increase the pay by three bucks an hour lets say, suddenly that whole formula goes up.

Again there's a difference between markup on an item that you sell as a suite of items, and the overall profitability of the item if you do your accounting that way.

Another example is I deal with a lot of engineering firms that do time and expenses projects. But the profitability of the project just isn't billable hourly rate - salaries of those on the project + expenses. Every one of them has to attach an over head charge to those projects.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

No but at the current wage an employee has to pour 8 drinks/hour to cover his wage, if he pours 2-5 more he has likely covered the utility charges for that hour as well. At $15/hour he has to pour about 11 cups per hour to cover his wage.

So where are those three extra customers coming from? Does the restaurant have the capacity to bring in those three extra customers?

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by nik-

The best way to gauge the success of your business really is to take the profit margin on your far and away most profitable single item, remove the majority of the associated costs, and call it a day.

If you list all of the items Macdonald takes a loss on with each sale to make your point you might have more success with convincing people that the profits they make on beverages don't tell the whole story. Or by all means, continue to blindly discredit facts by implying they are irrelevant to this the discussion if that's working for you.

[Flacker]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Umm I think a citation is required here. You're basically saying that the cost on a large pop at McDonalds is less then a penny

same on a coffee.

5000% would be a 50x mark-up no?

Where are you getting a soft-drink or coffee for 50 cents?

Umm, I think a math class is required here?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Flacker

5000% would be a 50x mark-up no?

Where are you getting a soft-drink or coffee for 50 cents?

Umm, I think a math class is required here?

Probably, I just threw it out there, because I don't buy the 5000 percent markup anyways. But yeah, my math was off.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

If you list all of the items Macdonald takes a loss on with each sale to make your point you might have more success with convincing people that the profits they make on beverages don't tell the whole story. Or by all means, continue to blindly discredit facts by implying they are irrelevant to this the discussion if that's working for you.

McDonalds is already replacing their workers with touch screens, so maybe not the company you want to use as an example.

[CaptainCrunch]

Man as much as I hate those touch screens, the service is pretty well at the same level as the manned counters.

[peter12]

So, it looks like inequality have been gone done considerably over the past 3 years. It's not for certain, but it looks like things may be getting a bit better for labour.

Obama has started claiming that it is due to his economic policies. While it is true that allowing the Bush 1% tax cuts expire was an excellent decision, much of the rest of it has to do with changes in the business cycle, which is an incredibly complicated thing that no one understands.

Lots of things are happening all the time that affect wages, and while I completely agree that labour must stand up to capital, there is a limit to policy impact. Moreover, there are more important things that workers can do to sustain themselves during economic crises besides pushing government to soak the businesses that don't flee during bad times.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by peter12

So where are those three extra customers coming from? Does the restaurant have the capacity to bring in those three extra customers?

Are you under the impression that macdonalds only serves 8 cups an hour?

They already have the business, and they may get a boost if more people have money to spend. And to avoid going around in circles, yes there is the potential that people will lose jobs in the short term, but there is also the potential that when those who did not lose their jobs have more money to spend it will increase revenue generated with the economy and create jobs to replace those that were lost.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Man as much as I hate those touch screens, the service is pretty well at the same level as the manned counters.

I completely disagree. I have never seen the system work efficiently. Typically someone has a problem, and they take it to the counter. At many locations, McDonald's is now paying a higher wage to a facilitator-type employee who has to walk customers through the kiosk.

Self-service at grocery stores has never worked out to the extent that was originally envisioned. At one point, some stores had replaced half the tills with kiosks, but have obviously rolled it back as an option to customers with only a few things in their baskets.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Man as much as I hate those touch screens, the service is pretty well at the same level as the manned counters.

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Are you under the impression that macdonalds only serves 8 cups an hour?

They already have the business, and they may get a boost if more people have money to spend. And to avoid going around in circles, yes there is the potential that people will lose jobs in the short term, but there is also the potential that when those who did not lose their jobs have more money to spend it will increase revenue generated with the economy and create jobs to replace those that were lost.

I'm just saying there are many hidden costs to bringing in new customers.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by GaiJin

Of course, which begs the question why stop at $15, hell let's make everyone rich and go right to $100, if it has no impact on the economy as Notley is saying currently.

All else aside, this is like arguing that if increasing the speed limit on a highway from 100 km/h to 120 km/h has a minimal impact, it will also have a minimal impact if you raise it to 800 km/h.

Change is not linear. There are tipping points where a very small change can make a gigantic difference in outcome, and there are times when what are perceived to be radical changes make very little difference. The main problem I have with this proposed minimum wage change is that it could go either way and not much thought seems to have been put into finding out which.

[LanceUppercut]

Originally Posted by peter12

I completely disagree. I have never seen the system work efficiently. Typically someone has a problem, and they take it to the counter. At many locations, McDonald's is now paying a higher wage to a facilitator-type employee who has to walk customers through the kiosk.

The kiosks have allowed me to customize my order without having to deal with a disinterested employee who has no desire to even remotely get my order right. They are the best thing McDonald's has ever done and I've experienced zero problems with them. In fact, I won't even go through the drive-thru anymore because I KNOW the useless twit making minimum wage will screw up my order.

The facilitator employee is actually part of their strategy in using the kiosks. It's to make McDonald's feel more 'high end'. They will even deliver your food to your table if you get one of those "create your own" burger things.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Umm I think a citation is required here. You're basically saying that the cost on a large pop at McDonalds is less then a penny

same on a coffee.

He's exaggerating somewhat but the profit margin on drinks is huge. Not quite as big on burgers and fries but still substantial. The cost of "materials" for large fast food franchises is amazingly small.

I remember being shocked how little the "wholesale" cost of the food was when I worked at one.

[jammies]

Also, it is MCDONALD'S iggy_oi. I normally wouldn't complain (well - maybe I would) but every single post being "macdonalds" is extremely annoying.

[automaton 3]

I find the kiosks to be great. The errors on my food order have been reduced to zero and allows me to take a second and think about what I really want, rather than rush though the lineup and simply order a combo because its easy.

Some of the kiosks had printer errors the other day which caused chaos though.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Have you gotten around to digging up the numbers on how many minimum wage workers in Alberta are over 26 years old or have children? Or are you one of those people for whom numbers and facts don't matter, and it's all about abstractions and sentiment?

http://www.cbc.ca/1.3086777

Around 300k workers earn between minimum wage and $15/hour. So this will affect around 10% of working Albertans

About 2% make minimum wage, so the hike won't be as high for 98% of employers.

About 35% of the minimum wage earners are 18 and under.

So this wage increase will affect 10% of the workforce in this province by increasing their wages by 34% or less over two years.

There I did the work that you could have easily done for yourself for you. If only I were paid minimum wage, I could have been told how lazy I am for having done so.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Man as much as I hate those touch screens, the service is pretty well at the same level as the manned counters.

For someone who is worried about people losing their jobs in one way it certainly appears as though you are not to be too concerned about contributing to it in another.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by jammies

Also, it is MCDONALD'S iggy_oi. I normally wouldn't complain (well - maybe I would) but every single post being "macdonalds" is extremely annoying.

I actually had no idea which spelling they use as it is typically just presented as a giant M

[peter12]

Originally Posted by jammies

All else aside, this is like arguing that if increasing the speed limit on a highway from 100 km/h to 120 km/h has a minimal impact, it will also have a minimal impact if you raise it to 800 km/h.

Change is not linear. There are tipping points where a very small change can make a gigantic difference in outcome, and there are times when what are perceived to be radical changes make very little difference. The main problem I have with this proposed minimum wage change is that it could go either way and not much thought seems to have been put into finding out which.

Yeah, I get the feeling we are at an economic tipping point, but that no one knows what the scale is, or what the effects will be or really anything.

Lots and lots of anxiety, and in these cases, I think the best thing for policymakers to do is pretty much nothing except for small tweaks to the social safety net.