30 Replies to “Go Ahead.”

  1. So long as the machines are user friendly I would have no trouble using one. I already do my banking, gasoline purchases, grocery shopping, hardware purchases and most of my clothes shopping using self serve checkouts.

  3. You won’t see these in India, wait until the day the French power grid goes out.
    The only thing missing now is the IRF chip so that the next time you forget to vote for Obamba he doesn’t need to wait on a IRS tax audit, or the National Defense Authorization Act to detain you indefinitely.
    He’ll just turn off the food.

  4. I prefer these machines to having to deal with an annoyed looking “associate”. I say bring them on!

  5. Well, if this catches on we will see a lot of low-level jobs disappear. I think that is too bad (in a way), but also probably inevitable. Automation has taken away many jobs. In one way it is not a problem to the extent that one benefit to automation is relieving human toil. Having said that, I think we are looking at a period of upheaval as the economy adjusts to fewer and fewer jobs. I know computer programmers who cannot find jobs these days. That’s just reality. I think it is rather like the industrial revolution. I suspect that solutions lie in innovative strategies such as job sharing and in shorter work-weeks.

  6. LindaL wrote:
    “I suspect that solutions lie in innovative strategies such as job sharing and in shorter work-weeks.”
    Or an innovative strategy such as a mass cull.
    When the dairy industry has a surplus of cows, they don’t take less milk from each cow, rather they turn the surplus cows into hamburger.

  7. Nice short term strategy to stiff the government. Minimum wage raise kills your margins, fire 7000 minimum wage employees and replace ’em with an iPad and a credit card reader. Necessity is the mother of invention, they say.
    But McDonalds may have a larger problem. When none of the low information voters who currently stuff their faces with Happy Meals have a JOB, and so cannot afford to visit McDonalds, profit margin may be the least of their troubles.
    Big Brother always wins in the end.

  8. LindaL said: “I suspect that solutions lie in innovative strategies such as job sharing and in shorter work-weeks.”
    You need a /sarc/ tag for that one Linda. Too subtle.
    Solution is a tax cut. A huge, across the board, gigantic, biggest ever in history… tax cut.
    Or a zombie apocalypse, where the LIVs burn down all the large cities they live in. That would work too.

  9. You won’t see these in India, wait until the day the French power grid goes out.
    That changes nothing. Do you think there’s even the remotest chance that the kid taking your order at McDonald’s now could process a cash transaction if the store’s computers went down? It’s all a lot of them can do to just count out the right number and type of coins to give people their change when the machine tells them exactly what it is.

  12. There’s a fantastic privately-owned chain of 7/11-type convenience stores in the Philly area near me called WAWA. I think there’s about 300 of them. They have AWESOME touch screens – so easy to use – orders never botched. Romney stopped by one during the campaign and remarked how cool they were. Go for it McDonalds!

  13. When will a brave politician say ” Youth unemployment is TWICE the overall unemployment rate. I want to LOWER the minimum wage until youth unemployment is the same as the overall unemployment rate.”
    I know – I’m dreaming in Technicolor.

  14. Will never happen in the good old USofA, after all if it did how could Obama and next up Hillary make claims about how sucessful they’ve been at reducing the unemployment rate and creating all the high paying paying jobs.
    On a personal note, I think I eat at McDonald’s about once every couple of years, and not by choice, I think it has something to do with the food.

  15. Like the self check outs in places like Safeway, people are getting more and more used to using them. The lineups at the self check outs gets longer while the lineups for the staffed checkouts get shorter. If those pushing for higher minimum wages can’t see the writing on the wall, they must also be oblivious to Detroit.

  16. I agree. I argued recently that “minimum wage prices many people out of the work force whose marketable value is less than the minimum wage”. The reactions to this comment were epic.

  17. 7,000 employees? Try tripling that or more. A self serve kiosk is always on and doesn’t need breaks. Each kiosk would replace at a minimum 3 employees a day. That’s a lot of cash saved by the employer. Does it suck? yes. Then again I would be guaranteed a correct order almost every time.

  18. If you have a system that punishes free enterprise every step of the way this will happen.
    From reports that French are so protected from layoffs and firings, you are better off without actual workers.
    As it is always there are those damn unintended consequences.
    Which are fully intended to screw free enterprising people, that produce wealth of nations.

  19. Behold, it’s back to the future: the 21st Century Automat. But honestly, can’t say I’m surprised. A typical meal at McDonald’s in Europe apparently costs something north of EUR25. I would prefer at least some human interaction if I’m going to spend that much for a reheated hamburger and fries.

  20. A story goes that Milton Friedman toured a major infrastructure project in some African country. The site was manned by thousands of workers with shovels. Friedman inquired about the lack of modern earth-moving equipment. The guide proudly replied that they are deliberatley avoiding using modern equipment so that they can employ many more workers. Friedman subsequently asked him why they weren’t using spoons instead of shovels.

  21. I would have stated that machines don’t up-sell.
    I was at a regional gas/convenience/sandwich shop (Sheetz) the other day. The machine up-sold every selection so…..
    The advantages of service personnel are no longer cost effective, and the disadvantages are eliminated.
    “Service industries account for 68 percent of U.S. GDP and four out of five U.S. jobs.”
    “The percentage of workers employed in services is also on the rise. It employs about four Canadians in five (78%)”
    Kiosks, e-commerce, electronic product guides and reviews can effectively whack these figures in half.
    40% of the labor force can be cost effectively replaced.
    “Oh wow.” (Steve Jobs)

  23. AndyN >
    True, I suppose my point was, that when the power goes out – no one in the west eats anymore.
    India will slave along as it always has, with cheap labor and enough hand grown food to keep the babies coming and the food riots to a minimum.

  24. Kiosks are great provided that they accept cash and are augmented with immediately available humans as a fallback.

  25. The Phantom >
    “…Or a zombie apocalypse, where the LIVs burn down all the large cities they live in. That would work too.”
    That’s what’s satisfying about Liberals staying in large metrosexual centers and not mixing with real humans; eventually they’ll cannibalize themselves out of existence if and when it all breaks down.
    Of course it disheartening to see more and more “Liberals” prepping and nervously fingering firearms in gun shops in the last couple of years. A few of them appear to have found enough brains to realize they’re on the bottom of the new evolutionary totem pole of their own creation.

  26. The site was manned by thousands of workers with shovels.

    Coulda been referring to the obamacare website..

  27. In china these kiosks would ask ,”Do you want flys with that”? With a mandarin accent of coarse.
    I guess in real life the employers of the LIVs see the writing on the wall, unions are getting hungry because the mafia wants large pension funds to raid.

  28. McPuter: What is your order today, customer?
    Me: I’d like a Filet-o-Fish and a Quarter pounder no cheese.
    McPuter: Would you like Fries with that?
    McDonald’s actually paid for the engineering/design of completely employee free fully automated restaurants in the 1990s but decided that people liked the ‘human touch’ feel they got more.
    Now, with the minimum wage issue, they have to decide if they’re going to keep their prices down by going automated or go out of business.
    I feel sorry for the little mom and pop burger joints, knowing they’ll never be able to make the leap to fully automated like the Biggies and knowing this kind of regulation is what pares down the competition for the corporations.

  29. Never fear, your Friendly Neighborhood Democrat(TM) will simply outlaw replacing minimum wage jobs with automation!
    Then, of course, they’ll have to outlaw businesses closing their doors just because they’re losing money. That’s not socially responsible, y’know.
    Then they’ll have to outlaw the owners of those businesses quitting. After repealing the 13th amendment, of course.
    Problem solved!

  30. so long as they’re not temporary foreign kiosks I don’t have a problem with it here in Canada

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