McDonald’s Replacing Cashiers With Machines?

Legal Insurrection
“ 'Would you like fries with that?” may soon be a long forgotten relic of American pop culture."

 

"McDonald’s employees who picketed for a better living wage (whatever that means) may come to regret that decision. According to a Redditor, a McDonald’s in Illinois replaced their cashiers with machines.  The machines appear to be the cousins of the ones found in grocery stores, big box stores, and CVS that allow customers to complete transactions.
"How cost effective is replacing an organic employee with a mechanized one? According to an economic blog, and unsurprisingly, the machines likely come out on top in terms of pricing:

• For a location open 24 hours: The cost of human cashiers, not counting benefits, $15/hour * 24 hours * 365 days/year = $131,400

• For a location open 6AM to Midnight:  $15/hour * 18 hours * 365 = $98,550.

• For the machine to be cost effective, all it needs to do is cost less than $100,000 a year to buy and maintain.

"Who could’ve possibly seen this coming? Forbes. They predicted this exact scenario last July.

A recent article at the Huffington Post makes the claim that if McDonald’s MCD +0.26% doubled its employees salaries it would only cause the price of a Big Mac to go up by 68 cents. The implication here is that 68 cents isn’t much money, so they should do it. There’s a few things missing from this.
One is that the article itself alleges that doubling wages would lead to a 17% increase in costs. And I guess this is obviously supposed to seem like a small amount? It doesn’t look that way to me. What do people expect will happen when prices go up 17%? If McDonald’s could raise its prices by that much without lowering demand they would. No, what would happen is people would shop at those stores less, there would be less profit and less McDonald’s stores to hire workers.
Doubling of labor costs will simply increase a fast food restaurant’s incentives to adopt technology like this. And if fast food wages doubled everywhere it would spur the development of these technologies even faster.

"This is all basic economics, really. As costs of labor increase the added cost must be offset. In order to satisfy operating costs, produce a product consumers want to purchase, and still turn a profit, it’s perfectly reasonable for a company like McDonald’s to look for cost-cutting alternatives. As Forbes pointed out, the added pressure to increase wages only serves to expedite technological solutions.
"But cooks are safe from the machination of American fast food, right?
"Not if companies like Momentum Machines has anything to do with it. “Our technology will democratize access to high quality food making it available to the masses,” their site claims. They also claim their burger making machines can, “do everything employees do except better” and that the machines reap such large labor savings, restaurants will be able to afford twice as fancy ingredients. Tempting little proposition they have there.

“ 'Would you like fries with that?” may soon be a long forgotten relic of American pop culture. And all because it makes good economic sense.

"Update (WAJ): Prof. Reynolds notes that Robot makers must be loving the recent NLRB ruling, as well, which held McDonald’s parent corporation liable for franchisee employment practices. Can a kiosk file an employment grievance?"

This cartoon below shows us how liberals look upon the small businesspeople who are the engine of this economy; with great disdain. Shame on the left. Shame on cartoonist Milt Priggee for this cartoon.

National Review on Obama's Foreign Policy

Box-Checking as Leadership; Obama’s foreign-policy failures are always the fault of someone else.    ...  "Let us stipulate — at least for the sake of argument — that the First Cause of Iraq’s unraveling was the Iraq War. That doesn’t change the fact that the second, third, fourth, fifth, and n^th causes of the chaos are the result, directly or indirectly, of President Obama’s decisions (or indecisions). Obama chose to pull troops out of Iraq as quickly as possible. Obama chose to dismiss ISIS as the “jayvee squad” this year. Obama chose to issue a “red line” ultimatum, then chose to say “never mind.” The guy has been president for five years. And yet to listen to him and his defenders he’s been utterly powerless to undo his predecessors’ mistakes, real or alleged. It’s like these people think the twice-elected president of the United States is still new to the job." ...   Jonah Goldberg

Do More for Iraq   ... "Defeating the Islamic State is a crucial national-security priority. The organization President Obama quite recently derided as al-Qaeda’s JV team has had a championship year, which demands much more than one fusillade of airstrikes. The Islamic State has surprised with its effectiveness, and it’s become clear that the Kurdish peshmerga paramilitary forces are underequipped to fight it."  Editors of NRO

Was General Greene a Victim of ‘Workplace Violence’ Too?

The global jihad is not nearly done with us, even if the president thinks he can wish it away.  Andrew C. McCarthy

 

Pity America’s Friends; People in the Middle East who put their trust in Barack Obama are suffering right now.   ... "  I wrote at the time, was an indication of what might become the “Obama doctrine,” which I described thusly: “The United States will remain passive in the face of genocide.” Seven years later, I regret to say, my prediction stands up pretty well.
...
"So pity the Yazidis, the Kurds, the Israelis, the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Jordanians, and the rest of America’s erstwhile friends in the region. They had the naïveté to put their trust in Barack Obama."    James Kirchick

 

Gaza War Has Changed the Way the World Talks About Hamas

Seth Mandel   "Amid all the metrics commentators propose to determine “who won” Operation Protective Edge, one is staring everyone in the face: the international community’s attitude toward a postwar (if and when the war is over) Gaza. And on that score, Israel seems to have won a convincing victory. The Gaza war has changed the way the world is talking about Hamas and the Gaza Strip–and, despite all their tut-tutting at Jerusalem, they sound quite a bit like Benjamin Netanyahu.

"... This time Hamas seems to have overplayed its hand.

"It’s possible that this is Hamas being a victim of its own morbid “success” with regard to the propaganda war. ... And no matter how often they try to blame Israel, they seem to understand that there’s only one way to prevent future bloodshed: demilitarize, at least to a significant degree, the Gaza Strip.

JACK LEVEY responds to the idea discussed above of the UN monitoring any cease-fires in this region:

   

• Would that be the same UN that refused to enforce access to the Suez Canal for ships to and from Israel?
• The UN that withdrew its peace keepers from the Sinai in 1967 at Egypt’s demand?
• The UN whose forces in Lebanon blocked Israel’s attempt to rescue kidnapped soldiers, failed to block terrorist attacks on Israel, and obstructs Israel’s attempts to respond to attack? Who allowed Lebanese terrorist to rearm, falsely accused Israel of targetting UN forces, and then came pleading to Israel for help when the terrorists attacked them?
• The UN whose schools in the disputed territories go beyond anti-Zionism to teach out-and-out Jew-hating?
• The UN that let Hamas divert millions of dollars of cement and rebar to constructing terror tunnels, after promising Israel to make sure that the supplies would be used only for rebuilding civilian infrastructure?
• The UN who falsely accused Israel of targetting UN schools, and who blamed Israel for deaths caused by Hamas shells and rockets? Who blatanly publishes false statistics about Gazans killed in the recent conflict, and who blasted Israel in the trumped up Goldstone Report after the last one? (I think I’ve read about those events at Contentions, as recently as today.)
• Who let Hamas build tunnels under UN schools and clinics (one of them with 12 barrels embedded in the walls, each barrel containing 170 lbs of high explosives — well, the UN guys must have been out for coffee), and handed rockets over to Hamas after finding them stored in UN schools?
• The UN that routinely condemns Israel as a human rights violator, while finding nothing wrong with such bastions of freedom as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and Sudan? Who allowed genocide to occur under the noses of its troops in Rwanda? Whose envoy endorsed the fraudulent claims of a massacre in Jenin?
• The UN whose court ruled that Israel had no right to build a fence to keep terrorists out because the terrorists were not a sovereign nation and accordingly Israel had no right of self defense against them?
• Am I the only one who thinks this might not be the best idea? Why would Israel agree to such an agreement, and how could it possibly rely on the UN to monitor Hamas instead of aiding and abetting them?
• ...

Of course not.

However, leftist -oops, "progressive"- cartoonist Pat Oliphant shows us that liberals cannot learn, cannot be made to learn, from the obvious:

 

Obama Iraq Decision Followed Limo Ride Talk With General

Christians take shelter in a church in Erbil, Iraq.

Bloomberg   "President Barack Obama’s decision to approve airstrikes and humanitarian air drops in Iraq began to come together at nightfall on Aug. 6, between the end of the African leaders’ summit he’d hosted and a dinner with his wife and some friends.

"During a five-minute limo ride back to the White House from the State Department with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey, Obama’s fears were confirmed. The offensive by militants with the Islamic State group had reached a critical point, according to an administration official who asked for anonymity to outline the private discussions.

"That chat turned into an hour-long meeting in the Oval Office with Dempsey, Obama chief of staff Denis McDonough and top national security advisers.

"Two White House Situation Room deliberations followed on Aug. 7 -- a 90-minute session during which Obama was told that a genocide could unfold without U.S. intervention and later, after the president broke off to sign a Veterans Affairs bill, a final two-hour huddle in the afternoon.

“ 'America is coming to help,” he announced in natioannly(sp) televised comments that night. U.S. food and water drops were conducted and then U.S. jets and drones yesterday carried out three bombing missions in northern Iraq, hitting militant offensive positions and a convoy." ...

The rise of Ben Carson and the GOP’s fractured flock of 2016

 "Why the prognosis is dim for Ben Carson's 2016 presidential campaign."

NRO  

"How will the fractured GOP find its next standard-bearer without ripping itself apart in the process?  Every Republican I speak with is extremely concerned that the party is again heading toward another brutal primary bloodbath in 2016, yielding disastrous results.

"Perhaps the answer is someone like Carson, a well-respected and fresh face who comes to the party from far outside the political arena.

' “The prospective 2016 presidential field looks like it will more open than any contest in memory,” Mark McKinnon, who served as the media strategist for President George W. Bush, tells National Review Online. “The absence of a clear front runner makes it possible for anyone to be ‘in play’ — even Ben Carson.”

"If Carson continues his current surge, widening his national media profile while his draft committee or official PAC rakes in millions, should that negate my concerns raised by the General Eisenhower?
And a more intriguing political question:

"In our modern age, is traditional elected-office experience really necessary to perform the job of president if one is a highly successful professional in a respected field?

"I do not pretend to know the answer, but I do know that all Americans are craving a strong, decisive leader in 2016. If Dr. Ben Carson is that person, let him lead the way.

Female Israeli Soldiers and American Feminists

Jeannie DeAngelis  

"Almost daily, Americans are subjected to the rantings of the likes of Democrat darling Sandra Fluke, Democrat politician Wendy Davis, and crazier-than-a-hoot-owl Nancy Pelosi.  Shamelessly, Sandra Fluke insists that the government finance her $3,000-a-year birth control habit.  In Texas, Wendy Davis made a name for herself by standing for 11 hours on the crushed corpses of aborted babies filibustering Senate Bill 5’s abortion regulations.

"And then there’s Mrs. Nancy "I’m Significant and You’re Not" Pelosi, who rationalizes promoting a crisis on the border with references to Baby Jesus and Moses, and who then, when challenged with the truth about her party’s culpability in that border crisis, manifests like Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist, insulting colleagues by calling them “insignificant.”
...
"The women of the IDF are focused on preserving the Holy Land, not advancing gender equity – the latter of which, by the way, is automatically accomplished when women act powerful and fearless instead of persecuted and ungrateful.

"It’s equality earned versus equality exacted." ...

 

Krauthammer’s Take: ‘Why in God’s Name’ Will Obama Not Arm the Kurds?

Weasel Zippers

 

"Of course, this qualifies as sense, and we’re talking about the Obama regime…

"Via NRO

"Charles Krauthammer cannot understand why the Obama administration is unwilling to provide arms to Kurds battling ISIS in Iraq: “The Kurds are allies of the U.S. They have a civil society, they’re pro-American, and they fight really hard. But they’re essentially using javelins and harpoons here, and we have not given them anything.”

"The White House has claimed that all American arms must go through the Iraqi government, an obligation at which Krauthammer scoffed: “The Iraqi government — that’s Maliki, that Shiite chieftain — has cut off all aid to the Kurdish area [of Iraq] since December of last year.” None of the arms the U.S. has sent through the Iraqi government have arrived, says Krauthammer.

" 'Why in God’s name we don’t resupply or supply our allies who can hold back ISIS is beyond me.”   Full article..
 

The Massacre of Sinjar

Force12 Media.

 

... "The Yezidi faith has many unique practices but despite the interesting instrumentations of their religion, the Yezidi are good peaceful people who have always supported the United States. When I was a Special Forces soldier deployed to Tal Afar in 2009 we had several Yezidi interpreters who were outstanding men. While Sinjar was a safe place, Yezidi who traveled to Mosul faced summary execution.  When ISIS captured the city and let all the criminals out of prison, any Yezidi found in the prison were immediately executed." ...

...

"There are now scattered reports of US air strikes against ISIS targets near Mosul amid the Pentagon’s official denials.  Whatever happens in the next few days will be critical.  While few are more skeptical of getting involved in more conflicts around the world than me, this is a situation where America can put a win in the box for the good guys and do it relatively easily with airstrikes which would shake up the status quo on the ground, giving Yezidi refugees a chance to escape, and Kurdish forces the opportunity to change the tides of war.  Please contact your representatives in the US government and let them know that a Yezidi genocide is unacceptable as is turning our backs on the oppressed."

U.S. F/A-18 Jets Bomb ISIS Artillery In First Airstrike

DEBKAfile  "The US military has begun air strikes against Islamic militant targets in Iraq, the Pentagon announced on Friday.

"Rear Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, said aircraft struck artillery being used against Kurdish peshmerga forces defending the Kurdish stronghold of Irbil against fighters with the Islamic State, known as ISIS or IS.

"Two FA-18 jets, launched from the USS George HW Bush aircraft carrier in the Gulf, dropped 500lb bombs on what the Pentagon described as a “mobile artillery piece”.
IS was using the artillery to shell Kurdish forces defending Irbil, where US forces are based, the US said. Two US air strikes followed, one by a drone on a mortar position and another by a jet on a vehicle convoy near Irbil, the Kurdish capital."

FUNKER530.com  "The U.S. has officially announced that airstrikes against ISIS fighters in Iraq have commenced, with the dropping of two 500 pound bombs on ISIS artillery firing on Kurds."

"Smoke rises from airstrikes Friday targeting Islamic State militants near the Khazer checkpoint outside of the city of Irbil in northern Iraq."

42 Changes to Obama Care...So Far

http://terrellaftermath.com/

Galen Institute    "This list was originally published HERE on Galen.org and has been published on National Review Online. It was updated to 29 changes on December 10, 2013."

December 13, 2013 UPDATE: 30 changes (PCIP extension)
December 19, 2013 UPDATE: 31 changes (Hardship waiver)
January 14, 2014 UPDATE: 32 changes (Union reinsurance fee exemption)
January 14, 2014 UPDATE: (PCIP extended again)
January 21, 2014 UPDATE: 33 changes (Equal employer coverage delay)
February 3, 2014 UPDATE: 34 changes (Subsidies may flow through federal exchanges) (List is now ordered chronologically)
February 10, 2014 UPDATE: 35 changes (Second employer mandate delay)
March 5, 2014 UPDATE: 36 changes (Subsidies extended outside of exchanges)
March 5, 2014 UPDATE: 37 changes (Consumers can keep non-compliant plans until 2017)
March 26, 2014 UPDATE: 38 changes (Sign-up deadline delayed)
April 7, 2014 UPDATE: 39 changes (Small group deductible cap eliminated-passed by Congress and signed into law)
April 8, 2014 UPDATE: 40 changes (Cuts to Medicare Advantage in 2015 canceled)
May 22, 2014 UPDATE: 41 changes (More funds for insurer bailout)
July 18, 2014 UPDATE: 42 changes (Exempting U.S. Territories)

The morality of Israel’s killing Palestinian civilians

Bookworm Room   "I have been engaged ... with someone who believes that killing civilians is always immoral. This moral stance means that, because Israel is killing civilians more effectively than Hamas, he believes Israel is morally more culpable than Hamas in the current conflict. He therefore cannot support her, and his sympathy for Palestinians outweighs his sympathy for Israelis."

 

... "Anyone who subscribes to a moral relativism that says that life is too precious to allow Israel to defend herself when a rabid Islamic force is waging war against her – and to castigate either Israel or me for being callous about death – is unforgivably ignorant about the reality of life in the Muslim world.

"The reality is that tyrannical regimes don’t walk away on command. They will kill or let die all of their people rather than relinquish their power. Moreover, one of the ways in which they maintain control over their citizens is to encourage those beleaguered, abused, pathetically ignorant citizens to enjoy killing “the other.”  The best way to show ones compassion and empathy for Muslims and Arabs around the world is to discourage the fanaticism that consigns them to lives of almost unbearable suffering."

Perhaps his debating friend felt the way Geraldo Rivera does.     ... "Geraldo went so far as to dismiss Hamas’ thousands of rocket attacks on Israel as “laughable” since only three Israeli civilians have been killed by them. The millions of Israelis who are huddling in bomb shelters – which is the reason for the low Israeli civilian casualty toll – are not laughing." ...
"Lesson twenty of the Gaza war: liberal pundits who justify terrorism are not only inviting attacks on Israel, but ultimately upon themselves."

Islamic State “Systematically Beheading” Christian Children, Raping Mothers, Hanging Fathers…

Noisy Room

 

"Beyond words."

A prominent Christian leader of the Chaldean community unveiled the “systematic beheading of children” and other horrendous crimes committed by ISIS. He said that the Sunni extremists are committing genocide against Christians in Iraq and with the aim to instill the Sharia Law as the law of the land.

In the interview with CNN’s Jonathan Mann, Chaldean-American businessman Mark Arabo said that the “world hasn’t seen an evil like this for generations.”
“There is a park in Mosul, where [ISIS] they actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick and have them in the park,” he explained. “More children are getting beheaded, mothers are getting raped and killed, and fathers are being hung.”

Speaking from San Diego over Skype, Arabo called for the international community to offer asylum to the more than 300,000 Christians fleeing and living in neighboring cities.

“The world hasn’t seen this kind of atrocity in generations,” he said. “This is a crime against humanity. This is much broader than a community or a state. This is crime against humanity. They are doing the most horrendous, the most heart-breaking crimes that you can think of.”

When asked about Sunni extremists’ targeting of Christians, Arabo said that around 95 percent of Christians have fled, five percent have converted. Also, the ISIS have marked the death stamps on Christian homes, so whoever returns will get killed.  Keep reading…

 The slaughter of the Yazidi

 

"While over 700 journalists were covering the Gaza conflict, few paid attention to the mass slaughter in Iraq of the Yazidi, who are on the verge of a true genocide at the hands of ISIS.

"Finally the impending massacre is getting coverage, but it may be too late." ...

Also this: While the world is preoccupied with Gaza, another religious minority faces the world’s worst fanatics.
... "Yet America must understand that our physical separation from the world won’t shelter us from its problems. We must accept that our deliberate neglect of strategic purpose only invites alternate strategic purpose: the purpose of IS and its opposite fanatics in Iran. And we must realize that those threats aren’t static. Uncontested, these political cancers will spread toward us."