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You probably remember Subway's famous "five-dollar footlong" promotion as much for the obnoxiously catchy jingle as for the sandwiches themselves. (Sorry for getting that stuck in your head all day.)
The sandwich chain recently resurrected the promotion in a national advertising campaign promising foot-long subs for just $4.99—but the special deal won't fly at one Subway restaurant in Seattle, where owner David Jones posted a sign this week giving customers the bad news.
Sadly, the consequences of high minimum wages, excessive taxation, and mandate-happy public policy are not limited to the death of cheap sandwiches. The cost of doing business in Seattle is higher than the Space Needle, and the unintended consequences of those policies are piling up too.
The biggest cost driver, as Jones' sign mentions, is Seattle's highest-in-the-nation minimum wage. It went from $9.47 to $11 per hour in 2015, then to $13 per hour in 2016, with a further increase to $15 per hour planned.
The result? According to researchers at the University of Washington's School of Public Policy and Governance, the number of hours worked in low-wage jobs has declined by around 9 percent since the start of 2016 "while hourly wages in such jobs increased by around 3 percent." The net outcome: In 2016, the "higher" minimum wage actually lowered low-wage workers' earnings by an average of $125 a month.
And now those same employees will have to pay more for sandwiches from Subway—and everything else too.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by KiloByte on Saturday January 13 2018, @09:09AM (9 children)
I don't get why the AC got modded to -1 rather than +5. The very same trick has been, successfully, pulled by the far right in Poland. Their voter base is almost exclusively the uneducated, unemployed and very religious; all of which tend to produce lots of kids. Thus, the "500+" program: every kid beyond the first get their parents paid 500PLN, no strings attached (guess what most of this money gets spent on). (500PLN is just $142, but Poland is a country where a doctor after studies and three years of work experience earns $10800 ($7800 after taxes) annually).
For the first kid you get the 500 only if your family's total income per person is below a given threshold. If you exceed it by just a penny, you don't get 499.99, you get 0 — which led to a lot of workers asking their employers for a wage decrease. This money is also exempt from debt collection (and not included in calculation of the exemption cap on other income), which goes well with PiS' rhetoric of banks being owned by foreign agents, mostly Germans and "international Jewry". Obviously, this means that a recipient of 500+ is less likely to get a loan — getting involved in any kind of business would risk making that person not depend on welfare, and PiS doesn't want that.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by anubi on Saturday January 13 2018, @10:39AM (4 children)
I also disagree with the moderation, and did what I could. I believe both you and the AC are right on.
It's just inflationary... and discourages businesses from hiring, leaving the public to pick up yet more laid off people.
Once people have lost their job, its all too likely they will be on the dole for the rest of their lives, as the welfare way of life becomes ingrained.
I talk quite often to the "people of the riverbed", and I hear the same story over and over. Lost job, heavy debt, lost everything to debt payments, now can't afford rent. While the merchants of misery ply the riverbed up and down selling drugs, cigarettes, weed, and alcohol, to "help" the unfortunate weather their misery. Its the biggest congressdammed mess I have ever seen.
Yeh, I know, most of those people got themselves in that mess. The allure of a "good time" overrode their common sense. A lot of people are quite naive. And, admittedly, from what I could tell, a lot of them got themselves there trying to live up to others ( especially spouse and family ) expectations of them. I mean just what does a dad do if Christmas is coming up and his kids want expensive electronics - and everyone is running themselves silly in debt so they they won't be upended by their children's/spouses disappointment on Christmas Day?
Relentless rat-race. Keep up with the Joneses. Like that stupid "hat and mink coat" crap amongst the wivery that my dad's generation had to put up with. I am where I am now because dad and mom didn't fall for that crap. Hollywood was pushing that crap hard during the day in all those movies. ( The "diamond as a symbol of betrothal", pushed by DeBeers, via Hollywood, lingers to this day! )
The "system" has us all in a helluva bind, because all this stuff is available, but at a price. And we hate so much to not live up to the expectations of a loved one. Who wants to be known as the Grinch? So, we borrow against tomorrow for the jubilation of one day, buying crap that will be in next year's trash, but amortized for far longer.... for "easy" monthly payments. Often for years.
Very few of us will stand up against the system, and those of us that will do so are usually not very popular and seen as "selfish", not "prudent", and then thought of as "fortunate" because we still are hanging onto what we worked for.
Yes, I saw that little pink dinosaur on TV urging me to spend even more, as he could "help" me get stuff that was "out of reach". Easy payments... just a few sawbucks... per week. Yes week. So the little pink dinosaur would not have to say a very big number and shock people into reality of what they were committing to. Stuff like this predatory lending crap makes me sick. But I know there was a helluva lotta people that would go for it. And they will have to find the money to send to that company. Every week. In addition to the money they have to scrape up to scrape by for the month.
I feel helpless, watching people spend money they don't have, for things they don't need, then when the timer runs out on the loans, these people lose everything, and expect those of us who wouldn't fall for this chicanery to bail them out. Then it becomes a matter of them doing what they have to do to survive, which is not a pretty picture. While somebody else who did nothing more than manipulate others ends up with all their stuff. All because that's how the law that governs our investment and business behaviour is written/regulated.
Fractional Reserve Banking.
Whose end result is the inevitable transfer of all wealth to the banks through the mechanism of debt.
TL:DR - Another of my long winded rants. Take with grain of salt.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Saturday January 13 2018, @11:21AM (2 children)
The poor/heavy spenders just need to spend so much money that they become, collectively, too big to fail, and then if they throw a few more dollars each at their senator, maybe the government will bail them out!
That's how wall Street does it!
💩
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @03:57PM (1 child)
If you really think the poor are getting a good deal, why don't you go try it for a few years? The poor in the USA are fucked over and trodden on.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday January 14 2018, @12:43AM
Ummm.... maybe turn your monitor sideways so you can see the sarcasm/irony?
I'm saying, basically, that the government is willing to bail out the rich because they are "too big to fail", but the poor can just suck ass cause the government will do nothing for them.
m'kay? You got that Timmy?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @04:40PM
I suppose educating people about responsibility is too late for your worldview?
Not that you would be the one to do it. It just seems that your cause is against those giving the money and those collecting the debt, rather than insisting the people taking out the loans and blowing it on pills and whatever else actually read more than personalized advertising.
I guess willpower is in short supply since it it's not for sale.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 13 2018, @05:12PM (2 children)
And, yet, Poland has the biggest wild forest in Europe, so... clearly they aren't overpopulating the place yet.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by KiloByte on Saturday January 13 2018, @08:16PM (1 child)
To those who didn't get parent's joke: said far-right government not only converted said wild forest to a commercial forest (in all but law), but even made the minister of environment do so.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday January 13 2018, @08:38PM
Out Trump-ing Trump... he can only wish to do such effective damage to the environment in the name of lining kleptocrats' pockets.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 13 2018, @06:04PM
Birth rates need to keep up, or the ethnicity goes extinct, lost forever.
Birth rates are killed by working women, the ban on child labor, legalized divorce with child support and alimony, porn, video games, the expectation of expensive education, and generally the expectation of expensive toys and housing.
That 500PLN is a start. It isn't really enough. To get the smarter people making smart kids, it needs to scale with income.
At least Poland is trying. Other places, like Germany and Sweden and France, are going to be wiped out.