Re:Uber will charge significantly more per trip as new Seatt...
by TeMPOraL on Thursday December 31, 2020 @07:18PM
(#25598974)
> If you're instituting policies that result in Walmart cutting its workforce, those same policies will absolutely cause the same to happen in competing chains.
Fair enough. I'm not from the US, I don't know the US retail market that well, beyond recognizing some brands. I assumed, by the tone of the comment thread I replied in, that Walmart is unique in being a big retailer on the wrong side of the size of wages - but in retrospect, that was a stupid assumption.
> How and why do you think new grocery stores that don't even have the established presence or infrastructure other chains had already built will be able to thrive once these other chains have disappeared?
I handwaved the risk of total societal collapse here :). But companies folding doesn't mean the infrastructure is gone; it can be reacquired and reused by new companies.
> part of the workforce that was laid off in the first place will still be out of work!
Fair enough. My assumption here was that the demand for grocery store workforce is driven by the demand for food, which would not change in this situation. But perhaps there's a surplus of workers.
> Do you think the families who were on the cusp of needing welfare before the prices on groceries rose will magically have their food budgets increased? Of course not.
A good point.
I agree with your analysis. Thanks for breaking down and simulating the consequences of my idea in larger context, and thanks for calling me on my bullshit. I'm not particularly proud of that comment.
That said, I'm still having trouble buying the idea that arbitrarily low wages are a good thing - I feel (though I'm not 100% convinced either) that these wages aren't determined solely by what makes sense for a given job category; there's a feedback loop pushing the wages down to however low they can get, and I suspect that there are optimizations left on the table, or cashed in as profits, that could be instead used to raise the wages while not meaningfully affecting the survivability of the company or the end prices for consumers.
Fair enough. I'm not from the US, I don't know the US retail market that well, beyond recognizing some brands. I assumed, by the tone of the comment thread I replied in, that Walmart is unique in being a big retailer on the wrong side of the size of wages - but in retrospect, that was a stupid assumption.
> How and why do you think new grocery stores that don't even have the established presence or infrastructure other chains had already built will be able to thrive once these other chains have disappeared?
I handwaved the risk of total societal collapse here :). But companies folding doesn't mean the infrastructure is gone; it can be reacquired and reused by new companies.
> part of the workforce that was laid off in the first place will still be out of work!
Fair enough. My assumption here was that the demand for grocery store workforce is driven by the demand for food, which would not change in this situation. But perhaps there's a surplus of workers.
> Do you think the families who were on the cusp of needing welfare before the prices on groceries rose will magically have their food budgets increased? Of course not.
A good point.
I agree with your analysis. Thanks for breaking down and simulating the consequences of my idea in larger context, and thanks for calling me on my bullshit. I'm not particularly proud of that comment.
That said, I'm still having trouble buying the idea that arbitrarily low wages are a good thing - I feel (though I'm not 100% convinced either) that these wages aren't determined solely by what makes sense for a given job category; there's a feedback loop pushing the wages down to however low they can get, and I suspect that there are optimizations left on the table, or cashed in as profits, that could be instead used to raise the wages while not meaningfully affecting the survivability of the company or the end prices for consumers.