Elon's Prediction

[Scooby24]

We're nibbling around the edges of industrial age solutions while AI and software eat the world. A radical take: The way we look at human labor and productivity is tired and doesn't scale with the fully AI and robots powered economy we're moving toward. To honor human freedom and meaning - and allow a free market economy, we should eliminate all minimum wages and most social programs, replacing them with UBI and universal healthcare. Doing this would offer the most actual freedom to most people to navigate their lives and negotiate their time with others (for work, volunteerism, art, etc).

I don't disagree. We are developing our replacements and there will be no going back. Sadly, I predict our government will not move at the speed of the industry shift to protect us and we will be wrecked.

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[curtisfinney]

Of course you would accept that.

And the company that gave it to you would run out of money in weeks.

There’s good reasons why corporations are run by CEOs and not the workers. The workers would instantly bankrupt the company if they got what they wanted. Then no one has a job.

This isn’t and shouldn’t be about CEO pay vs worker pay.

It should be about worker pay vs worker pay.

Why should people working at “union factories” be paid significantly more and work less hours than everyone else?

Since when did a 5 day, 40 hour work week become unreasonable?

If we can’t compete based on price and productivity, then jobs will continue to go overseas.

So executives make 40% more than they did in 2009?

Ok, so how much more do the workers make since 2009? Shouldn’t we subtract all the raises in the last 14 years to make things “fair,” if that’s the argument?

Not that it really matters. Executive pay and worker pay is rarely “fair.”

At least you agree it’s “childish” to demand the 32 hr thing. ?

I actually think it’s great to start the conversation on a 32 hour work week. What made a 40 hour work week the magical answer?

 

[Mach1E]

I actually think it’s great to start the conversation on a 32 hour work week. What made a 40 hour work week the magical answer?

The labor market.

But what the labor market hasn’t made the answer for is getting paid weekly for work you don’t do.

A couple weeks a year vacation and some more sick time? Sure.

But to ask for a paid personal day every week in addition to that?

There are plenty of people who would line up to take the union jobs from you……and work the full 40 hours.

And outside the US? They’ll work even more hours for less pay.

That is the competition. It’s a bad idea to price yourself out of a job.

 

[ArthurDOB]

Like the 1 million robots who have already replaced human workers in the auto industry? You act as if this isn't happening or happened.

https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/one-million-robots-work-in-car-industry-worldwide-new-record

If robots are cheaper than robotic labor, people will be replaced with machines. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. As I said previously, no CEO wants to replace a human with a robot, but if they demand unreasonable pay then they will be replaced or the labor will be forced outside the USA.

AI will likely replace my job one day. Facts are facts. I'm not going to sugar coat reality for the sake of political correctness.

Hey, I'm not trying to get in a fight. This isn't about political correctness. I'm just saying that people need to be treated like human beings and given the same consideration as everyone else. Likening current auto workers to robots because robots replaced other auto workers in the past makes no sense and is offensive. These are people. They need to be able to build a decent life for themselves. It is in everyone's interest to make sure everyone has the opportunity for meaningful work and a liveable wage. When I got my first high school job in 1977, the minimum wage was the equivalent of $11.41 in 2023 dollars. It's been $7.25 since 2009, and people are melting down when fast food workers ask for $15/hour! People are underpaid and are tired of it.

The slippery slope of robots and AI replacing us all is, how is anyone going to earn money to buy anything at all? What happens to profits then? Elon Musk tried to automate everything possible in his Tesla plants at the beginning but then found that people performed certain tasks more efficiently than machines, and had to de-automate some aspects of Tesla's assembly line. Automation is not always the answer.

Treating being replaced by machines as inevitable is fatalism at its worst. It doesn't have to be that way if we decide we don't want that outcome.

 

[ArthurDOB]

I actually think it’s great to start the conversation on a 32 hour work week. What made a 40 hour work week the magical answer?

In the 19th Century, the idea was floated for 8 hours of work, 8 hours of rest, 8 hours of family time, a day off for rest, a day off for worship (the weekend). That was their answer to 12+ hours a day for six days and a day off for worship.

 

[Rick65]

the answer here is employee ownership of the company... rather than ask for money, ask for a piece of the company

 

[Just Lurking]

I actually think it’s great to start the conversation on a 32 hour work week. What made a 40 hour work week the magical answer?

The labor market.

Amusingly, we have unions and the labor movement to thank for the 40-hour work week. It's become a convention, but there's no reason to think it should be fixed forever and ever.

There were predictions decades ago that increasing productivity would lead to us to work fewer hours per week with the same standard of living. And that obviously hasn't happened, but there's no reason that it couldn't happen one day.

There are many countries where full time work is less than 40 hours. Maybe it will one day become a trend.

 

[MellowJohnny]

And therein lies the problem.

Why? Shareholders have capital at risk - they expect a return, and returns are generated by corporate profits. Employees just make stuff, they have no capital at risk, they get a wage for doing a job. Ford is not a charity, they have shareholders to keep happy.

 

[Vulnox]

I don't disagree. We are developing our replacements and there will be no going back. Sadly, I predict our government will not move at the speed of the industry shift to protect us and we will be wrecked.

Exactly, unfortunately we need to be working on these things now, and electing leaders that want to tackle the issue.

The labor market.

But what the labor market hasn’t made the answer for is getting paid weekly for work you don’t do.

A couple weeks a year vacation and some more sick time? Sure.

But to ask for a paid personal day every week in addition to that?

There are plenty of people who would line up to take the union jobs from you……and work the full 40 hours.

And outside the US? They’ll work even more hours for less pay.

That is the competition. It’s a bad idea to price yourself out of a job.

This take is always so self-defeating with any level of thought on where it leads. It's a bad idea to not pay your employees a wage to afford your products, which is where many jobs are headed. People talk like increasing union pay, or any worker pay, is just a drain on a company full stop. While paying an employee more isn't a guarantee they will buy your product, you better believe that a union employee making more money is more likely to buy an F-150 or Mach-e than the one in another country that maybe doesn't even have Ford vehicles.

I worked for Ford up until July of this year, and while not everyone owned Ford products, a good number of them do. If an employee gets an extra $20k/yr and goes from driving their 10 year old Fusion to a new F-150, Ford benefits.

The race to the bottom in employee wages is a foolish approach. I worked on the IT side at Ford, which hires a lot in AP (India) because it's "cheaper".

Here's a quick summary of the Ford vehicle selection they can then buy:
https://www.carwale.com/ford-cars/

Obviously it's complicated and again I am fully aware not everyone that works at any company buys their products. But at least with Ford being employed and getting A-Plan is a heck of an incentive, can see that from the two Ford vehicles in my user picture, expensive Ford vehicles too because Ford paid well enough for it.

Goes back to all the complaints of companies about younger generations not buying diamond engagement rings or eating out for dinner and that as much as they used to, if you underpay your employees and replace them with AI or whatever else you keep defending, suddenly nobody buys your stuff. Not saying every employee should have CEO pay, but there is clearly a better middle ground than the average company wants to provide on their own.

 

[MellowJohnny]

Hey, I'm not trying to get in a fight. This isn't about political correctness. I'm just saying that people need to be treated like human beings and given the same consideration as everyone else. Likening current auto workers to robots because robots replaced other auto workers in the past makes no sense and is offensive. These are people. They need to be able to build a decent life for themselves. It is in everyone's interest to make sure everyone has the opportunity for meaningful work and a liveable wage. When I got my first high school job in 1977, the minimum wage was the equivalent of $11.41 in 2023 dollars. It's been $7.25 since 2009, and people are melting down when fast food workers ask for $15/hour! People are underpaid and are tired of it.

The slippery slope of robots and AI replacing us all is, how is anyone going to earn money to buy anything at all? What happens to profits then? Elon Musk tried to automate everything possible in his Tesla plants at the beginning but then found that people performed certain tasks more efficiently than machines, and had to de-automate some aspects of Tesla's assembly line. Automation is not always the answer.

Treating being replaced by machines as inevitable is fatalism at its worst. It doesn't have to be that way if we decide we don't want that outcome.

I don't disagree at all, in fact I live in socialist country with universal healthcare. But this is at odds with rampant consumerism and the desire to pay less and less for things. It's why there is essentially no manufacturing in NA anymore. We all wanted to pay less for our furniture and toasters, and labour was usually the biggest input, so jobs went overseas.

I don't agree with any of it - I'd be happy top pay a bit more for things made closer to home, but I'm the minority. People keep talking about how expensive EVs are and at the same time fighting for big wage increases.

Interestingly I had a professor who was involved in Union negotiations and he said each month they fight like hell for more soap and paper towels in the bathrooms. Why? Give an inch on soap and next it's wages.

 

[George]

“More comfortable wages.” ?

That’s how you describe demanding a 40% pay raise along with working a 32 hour week (but getting paid for 40 hrs)?

The demands are absurd and will just result in future plant closures.

Just when we convince manufacturers to move jobs back in the US, the unions do their best to make them regret that decision.

100% agree. Union greed will cause them to fail faster than anything else they could do. It's that mentality and union greed that caused the U.S. to lose its incredible advantage in the automotive market, and now so many other countries are eating our lunch by being able to better engineer and undercut our price points. Unions no longer just support the working conditions for overworked/underpaid employees (which was an admirable and necessary thing to be doing "back then." Now they are like parasites...feeding off the host until they eventually kill it.

 

[Ghost Ryder]

I said no such thing. Children are natural negotiators. They are not afraid to ask for what they want. So many adults are, and they shouldn't be. They should be as fearless as children are in asking for what they want.

And yes, auto industry executive pay has gone up 40% since 2009. Workers' pay has not, and in general, has not kept up with inflation, either.

Hypothetical situation. If the CEO pay did not go up or even gone down. Will the workers be happy with their pay and not ask for any increase?

I'm going to guess no. Because the CEO pay is just a red herring. It sounds good to the uninformed public, but it has very little to do with the company's bottom line.

 

[ArthurDOB]

Why? Shareholders have capital at risk - they expect a return, and returns are generated by corporate profits. Employees just make stuff, they have no capital at risk, they get a wage for doing a job. Ford is not a charity, they have shareholders to keep happy.

...but not employees, apparently.

 

[Ghost Ryder]

What you are saying doesn't represent reality. There absolutely are people that buy a new phone every year, but they are the severe minority. Apple has said that the average lifecycle of current iPhones is three years. Being an average, that means there are people keeping them for less of course, but also those keeping them for longer. And since the average is falling in the 3 year mark, it would make sense that a small number are actually replacing them every year.

What DOES drive people to get new phones is the corporate push to artificial obsolescence, and while Apple is often the one getting heat for this, it's present with almost every manufacturer, and on the Android OS side, many users find they stop getting major OS updates after only 2-3 years. Apple does a better job on ensuring older devices continue getting OS updates, but they fail at device reparability/battery replacement.

Meaning many people on either of the major OS sides, are essentially pushed to upgrade, and it isn't enough to say to just get a dumb phone because for many careers, having a smartphone is almost a necessity, and more and more companies take their employees having a personal smartphone as a given, not something they need to invest in.

Society's mentality on what you are referencing is hardly perfect, but it's not even close to what you seem to think it is, and you're echoing talking points that companies love to put out there to excuse their bad behavior. May as well go on about millennials and avocado toast and all the other stuff we have heard over the years to excuse corporate greed and diminish the complaints of groups being underpaid.

Saving and investing in the future is a mentality. That's why so many first-generation immigrants succeed despite the odds. When the starting wage at McDonald's is $20/hour, a couple could easily clear $100k/year. It wouldn't take long to save to buy a house.

Anecdotal example: My aunt came to the US, and worked (not owned) in a nail salon. Saved every penny. Within 10 years she bought a house, free and clear.

As far as the phone goes, you don't need the latest iPhone or Android. a 5-year-old iPhone XR is still very capable.

The problem is that people never sit down and actually think about what they need, only what they want.

I'm all for people getting as much as they can, but just realize that it's a zero-sum game for the company. Pull too many eggs from the gold goose and the goose may get and leave. That's happened before with the offshoring of jobs, and it will happen again. Businesses were finally coming back, but it looks like things are reversing course. Starting with Ford canceling the EV plant.

 

[Ghost Ryder]

Robots?! You're likening them to robots?! Wow. That is a pretty atrocious attitude toward assembly line workers and workers in general. I hope for your sake that the workers who work at your company never see this. I'd be beyond angry at essentially being called a replaceable cog in a machine. This attitude is what angers people about corporate America.

These Auto workers are on a two-tiered pay system while doing the same work. It should be a no-brainer to end that practice. They also deserve to share in the benefits their hard work has brought the company, just the way the C Suite Execs have handsomely rewarded themselves.

We all do better when we all do better.

The two-tier system is inherently unfair. But to end it, you assume that the only solution is the bring the lower tier up. How about meeting in the middle? The lower tier goes down halfway, and the lower tier goes up to meet them. Sounds fair? No? I didn't think you would agree to that.

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