Liberal Forum

DeezerShoove » 27 Jan 2026, 1:34 pm » wrote: ↑

27 Jan 2026, 1:34 pm

I my experience a dishwasher was slightly lower than fast food in desirable work positions.

"Suffice to say the "intended as a 'first' job, to gain workplace experience" narrative is absolute ****."
         ^^^This statement is absolutely wrong.

I, myself, proved it wrong. As did more than a few of my friends. LOTS of people see it that way.

You don't get it. Just because SOME people's first job is fast food, that does not mean fast food jobs are exclusively intended for first jobs. 

I showed you the pay scale. I showed you the first crew. I showed you the AI history. 

You've got a narrative. I have history and common sense. I have actual observable reality. It cannot be denied that these jobs ARE career jobs. You have a narrative that says they SHOULDN'T be what they manifestly are. 

And the narrative has gas behind it, and anecdotal experience behind it. My argument has observable reality in the "is" world - not inventions from the "should" world. 

And AGAIN, this is truly an IRRELEVANT SIDE ARGUMENT.

It has nothing to do with the relative pay scale. Even if I grant your homily-fired narrative based in the should world, the fact remains that in the 60s, the job paid over 20 bucks an hour in big mac dollars. So why will that pay break the industry TODAY?
 

Cannonpointer » 27 Jan 2026, 1:46 pm » wrote: ↑

27 Jan 2026, 1:46 pm

You don't get it. Just because SOME people's first job is fast food, that does not mean fast food jobs are exclusively intended for first jobs. 

I showed you the pay scale. I showed you the first crew. I showed you the AI history. 

You've got a narrative. I have history and common sense. I have actual observable reality. It cannot be denied that these jobs ARE career jobs. You have a narrative that says they SHOULDN'T be what they manifestly are. 

And the narrative has gas behind it, and anecdotal experience behind it. My argument has observable reality in the "is" world - not inventions from the "should" world. 

And AGAIN, this is truly an IRRELEVANT SIDE ARGUMENT.

It has nothing to do with the relative pay scale. Even if I grant your homily-fired narrative based in the should world, the fact remains that in the 60s, the job paid over 20 bucks an hour in big mac dollars. So why will that pay break the industry TODAY?

They are **** jobs that hardly anybody actually wants.
My observable history is what I lived and the people around me.

People that have worked fast food (not necessarily the managers and such) are temps for the most part or forced by life into this crappy world. You want to call it a career because people lack incentive, education, or have forced circumstances? I won't argue that the numbers support that MANY people have these jobs. I would argue against it being a career choice.
The only thing that bolsters this part of the minimum wage pro stance is sheer numbers of hapless slobs stuck in nowhere jobs.

DeezerShoove » 27 Jan 2026, 4:26 pm » wrote: ↑

27 Jan 2026, 4:26 pm

They are **** jobs that hardly anybody actually wants.

And the people that would do them are deported. Probably spurred the minimum wage.
 

JohnnyYou » 27 Jan 2026, 4:41 pm » wrote: ↑

27 Jan 2026, 4:41 pm

And the people that would do them are deported. Probably spurred the minimum wage.

None of my friends that had those jobs were ever deported.
Actually I don't even know a person that flipped burgers and was deported. Do you?

DeezerShoove » 26 Jan 2026, 11:27 pm » wrote: ↑

26 Jan 2026, 11:27 pm

Agreed. About the what-is-the-real-problem part.
Or more importantly, a cure, if any such thing exists at all.

Children used to have chores in an agrarian society. That was noble and healthy, educational and character-building.
What do they do now? Nothing, because child labor is oh-so-damaging, we stopped that stuff.
But flipping burger type jobs were a start for kids to face the humdrum adult work-a-day world.

Suddenly that's a career? Adults need the money now, too. None of this is good.

They stopped child labor because it is / was unnecessary. We have an oversupply of labor despite the gaslighting from the Regimes that occupy the WH, claiming we have a "labor shortage" that justifies infinity immigration.

J U U occupied govts lie to the peons constantly.
 

LowIQTrash » 27 Jan 2026, 5:33 pm » wrote: ↑

27 Jan 2026, 5:33 pm

They stopped child labor because it is / was unnecessary. We have an oversupply of labor despite the gaslighting from the Regimes that occupy the WH, claiming we have a "labor shortage" that justifies infinity immigration.

J U U occupied govts lie to the peons constantly.

Pit ponies were in "short" supply.   

Kids and canaries helped improve conditions...  
 

DeezerShoove » 27 Jan 2026, 4:26 pm » wrote: ↑

27 Jan 2026, 4:26 pm

They are **** jobs that hardly anybody actually wants.
My observable history is what I lived and the people around me.

People that have worked fast food (not necessarily the managers and such) are temps for the most part or forced by life into this crappy world. You want to call it a career because people lack incentive, education, or have forced circumstances? I won't argue that the numbers support that MANY people have these jobs. I would argue against it being a career choice.
The only thing that bolsters this part of the minimum wage pro stance is sheer numbers of hapless slobs stuck in nowhere jobs.

No.

What bolsters their argument is the math which makes this ^ side argument irrelevant. 
 
Which brings us back to the issue. Why should the present generation work for 35-45% of the big macs their parents' and grandparents' generations worked for? How is it that the entire industry is under threat from this? The country is MORE productive, not less productive. Supply chains are MORE streamlined, not less streamlined. What are the ECONOMIC arguments in favor of the narrative that FF will suddenly be unaffordable TODAY, even though it was affordable yesteryear when its workers received a living wage? 

"All the guys I know hate those jobs" doesn't answer the math. 

DeezerShoove » 27 Jan 2026, 5:29 pm » wrote: ↑

27 Jan 2026, 5:29 pm

None of my friends that had those jobs were ever deported.
Actually I don't even know a person that flipped burgers and was deported. Do you?

They did stop raiding restaurants..  I guess they figured out it made it harder to get dinner.

A friend of ours at the restaurant has been there since I have been going for 26 years. He worked our wedding party..   At one point he shared he was not a citizen yet and that it was a struggle to be 100% legit. He's not gone yet and we worry..
 
 

JohnnyYou » 27 Jan 2026, 10:11 pm » wrote: ↑

27 Jan 2026, 10:11 pm

They did stop raiding restaurants..  I guess they figured out it made it harder to get dinner.

A friend of ours at the restaurant has been there since I have been going for 26 years. He worked our wedding party..   At one point he shared he was not a citizen yet and that it was a struggle to be 100% legit. He's not gone yet and we worry..

It is your party which endangered him, with their anti-American, anti-white war on legitimate citizens. 

You brought tens of millions of illegals into the country and dispersed them, then put them on the teat to bankrupt our social safety net. Now you cry crocodile tears about some guy against whose interests YOU have acted.
 

Cannonpointer » 27 Jan 2026, 10:00 pm » wrote: ↑

27 Jan 2026, 10:00 pm

No.

What bolsters their argument is the math which makes this ^ side argument irrelevant. 
 
Which brings us back to the issue. Why should the present generation work for 35-45% of the big macs their parents' and grandparents' generations worked for? How is it that the entire industry is under threat from this? The country is MORE productive, not less productive. Supply chains are MORE streamlined, not less streamlined. What are the ECONOMIC arguments in favor of the narrative that FF will suddenly be unaffordable TODAY, even though it was affordable yesteryear when its workers received a living wage? 

"All the guys I know hate those jobs" doesn't answer the math.

Could be that people just don't cook at home as much. Family unit and traditional meals are a thing of the past. So they don't have to try as hard to attract customers and prices scoot up.
Probably some of that in this "equation" too.

DeezerShoove » 27 Jan 2026, 11:56 pm » wrote: ↑

27 Jan 2026, 11:56 pm

Could be that people just don't cook at home as much. Family unit and traditional meals are a thing of the past. So they don't have to try as hard to attract customers and prices scoot up.
Probably some of that in this "equation" too.

But this would argue for the position of those insisting wage hikes to previous norms are not a threat to the industry.

The question at hand is this: Why is paying the same wage levels in what you just posited is an industry with a larger and less volatile market a threat to that industry or an insult to common sense? How is it that "justice" or some **** ideology is offended by hard working people getting paid a living wage - especially in the face of the math that I presented? Especially in the face of these wages having been paid during the nascence of this industry, when the industry's chief competition came from moms' kitchens, and eating out was viewed as a luxry, not a necessity - was in many quarters quite looked askance at?

I well remember that families which ate out regularly were looked down upon in the very days when employees were being paid a better wage. And here we are at a time when dining out is not looked askance at - a time when it is more acceptable and more resorted to and even seen as more necessary. Hell, nine states have made SNAP benefits cover fast food, FFS. So how is a living wage a threat to this booming and established industry, if it was manageable when the market was so much smaller and had to compete with stay-at-home moms throwing something together?
 
The insistence that these jobs "shouldn't" pay a living wage because these jobs aren't 'real' jobs doesn't answer my question at all. It ducks the question. I am essentially asking a simple math and logic question. Or maybe a complex math question, and there are variables I am missing. That's why I keep digging. Other than utterly irrelevant narrative involving value judgments of another man's labor, do those shrieking against working people being paid a living wage have anything to offer? Any math or logic? 

The industry is at once healthier (forgive the irony) than it has ever been, and paying less big macs than it has ever paid. Yet it has people leaping to its defense in captain saveaho capes, deriding and belittling those working in the industry and insisting that they should accept poverty wages. 

Like I said, I despise the haircut in cali. But his wage hike LITERALLY puts mickey dees employees back where they were when the industry was very new, not widely accepted, still gaining traction. Now it is fully mature, fully and widely accepted, subsidized by EBT in nine states, and paying far fewer big macs to its workers. Make that make sense. 

 
 

Cannonpointer » 27 Jan 2026, 11:04 pm » wrote: ↑

27 Jan 2026, 11:04 pm

It is your party which endangered him, with their anti-American, anti-white war on legitimate citizens. 

You brought tens of millions of illegals into the country and dispersed them, then put them on the teat to bankrupt our social safety net. Now you cry crocodile tears about some guy against whose interests YOU have acted.

I did not have direct involvment in immigration policy, as you hopefully you  have no direct involvememt with the illegal Trump regime.

I voted against Facism.  Trump supporteres are behind it 100%.  Where are the 60,000  unaccopanied minor children sucked up in the Mass Depotation Project?


 

JohnnyYou » 28 Jan 2026, 12:53 am » wrote: ↑

28 Jan 2026, 12:53 am

I did not have direct involvment in immigration policy, as you hopefully you  have no direct involvememt with the illegal Trump regime.

I voted against Facism.  Trump supporteres are behind it 100%.  Where are the 60,000  unaccopanied minor children sucked up in the Mass Depotation Project?

Perhaps they are in the same cages Obama held them in. MY chickens are in their coop,

You say you voted against fascism, but Biden sent money to an actual nazi regime in Coupkraine. If the people who burned our cities were not fascists, in your mind, then what WERE they?
 
If bullying Americans to inject an experimental drug rushed to market by an orange boob was not fascism, in your mind, what WAS it?
 

Cannonpointer » 28 Jan 2026, 12:57 am » wrote: ↑

28 Jan 2026, 12:57 am

Perhaps they are in the same cages Obama held them in. MY chickens are in their coop,

You say you voted against fascism, but Biden sent money to an actual nazi regime in Coupkraine. If the people who burned our cities were not fascists, in your mind, then what WERE they?
 
If bullying Americans to inject an experimental drug rushed to market by an orange boob was not fascism, in your mind, what WAS it?

Miller was the one with the kids in cages in Trump 1.0 as I recall.  I was concerned abou their welfare then. But I think you may have some accuracy in that Obama had cages for kids too. He was known as The Deporter in Chief.  I guess your side didn't care about the kids back then.

Ukraine is about Freedom and Rule of Law in my perception.

Measles are coming back because of vaccine fears. It is killing kids.  The COVID Vax has repurcussions, but in the short term it appears to have kept the hospitals from being overwhelmed at the time.  I was willing to work with you on that debate, but you have deemed my input not worthy on your monster thread. You're skepticism is not ignored or shoved off my table. That was a complicated situation and remains so. I don't miind if my Doctor is Draconian towards maladies. That is not facism.

 
 

JohnnyYou » 28 Jan 2026, 1:20 am » wrote: ↑

28 Jan 2026, 1:20 am

Miller was the one with the kids in cages in Trump 1.0 as I recall.

And there is the rub, goldfish. AS YOU RECALL.

JohnnyYou » 28 Jan 2026, 1:20 am » wrote: ↑

28 Jan 2026, 1:20 am

I was concerned abou their welfare then. But I think you may have some accuracy in that Obama had cages for kids too. He was known as The Deporter in Chief.  I guess your side didn't care about the kids back then.

They still don't, ***. They care about THEIR kids. But your side kills their kids, so they have time to moralize about children who lived. They don't CARE, but they love thay-a-tah.

JohnnyYou » 28 Jan 2026, 1:20 am » wrote: ↑

28 Jan 2026, 1:20 am

Ukraine is about Freedom and Rule of Law in my perception.

With no irony, you mouth-fart "rule of law" about a nation which is a coup government that has outlawed the speaking of all languages except Ukrainian and has waged a hot war against its ethnic minorities! 

The rule of law REQUIRED Ukraine to be Constitutionally Neutral. It was the inviolable barrier between east and west, with both sides guaranteeing its borders. And OBAMA and HILLARY sent Victoria Nuland to plot a coup in violation of those borders with the announced intention of using Ukraine as a battering ram against Russia. The playbook for this scheme was written by the Rand Corporation and published in various journals years before Obama (or the deep state) implemented it. 

That went badly, and I am laughing loudly. So is most of the planet, which considers your view retrograde, stupid and fascist. 

JohnnyYou » 28 Jan 2026, 1:20 am » wrote: ↑

28 Jan 2026, 1:20 am

Measles are coming back because of vaccine fears. It is killing kids.  The COVID Vax has repurcussions, but in the short term it appears to have kept the hospitals from being overwhelmed at the time.  I was willing to work with you on that debate, but you have deemed my input not worthy on your monster thread. You're skepticism is not ignored or shoved off my table. That was a complicated situation and remains so. I don't miind if my Doctor is Draconian towards maladies. That is not facism.

Complicated? Seems you fascists made it pretty **** simple.

Take any of a dozen experimental "vaccines" rushed to market by Trump, or be locked out of any particiaption in society. Speak a word of truth or utter an honest question, and you will lose your youtube, facebook, tik tok, what the **** have you. Censorship and fascism and racial animosity is all your side has to offer.

It never occured to you idiots that HIV has been with us for fifty years and no vaccine has ever been possible, but a lab-grown fake pandemic has a dozen shelf-ready "vaccines" two months after it is released with great fanfare and Reefer-Madness quality propaganda. 
 
 
 

Cannonpointer » 27 Jan 2026, 10:00 pm » wrote: ↑

27 Jan 2026, 10:00 pm

No.

What bolsters their argument is the math which makes this ^ side argument irrelevant. 
 
Which brings us back to the issue. Why should the present generation work for 35-45% of the big macs their parents' and grandparents' generations worked for? How is it that the entire industry is under threat from this? The country is MORE productive, not less productive. Supply chains are MORE streamlined, not less streamlined. What are the ECONOMIC arguments in favor of the narrative that FF will suddenly be unaffordable TODAY, even though it was affordable yesteryear when its workers received a living wage? 

"All the guys I know hate those jobs" doesn't answer the math.

Setting aside ethics, the counterargument (I don't know if Deezer Shoove mentioned this or not) is that labor is just a function of supply and demand for warm bodies.

If workers are more productive, that means the capital owners will just extract more "value" (snicker) from them. It doesn't mean that that wages will increase - and in fact wages are most likely NOT going to increase as long as there are 100+ qualified and able people applying for every job (which is INDEED the case right now)

We are nearing Great Financial Crisis levels when it comes to ratio of applicants : job openings (legit job openings, not the fake ones they put out to collect data or justify H1B visas).

If you have an oversupply of workers (which we do) and not enough people spending money at places to justify hiring so many people (which is also the case) then the wages are going to be ****.

 
 

LowIQTrash » 28 Jan 2026, 2:32 am » wrote: ↑

28 Jan 2026, 2:32 am

Setting aside ethics, the counterargument (I don't know if Deezer Shoove mentioned this or not) is that labor is just a function of supply and demand for warm bodies.

If workers are more productive, that means the capital owners will just extract more "value" (snicker) from them. It doesn't mean that that wages will increase - and in fact wages are most likely NOT going to increase as long as there are 100+ qualified and able people applying for every job (which is INDEED the case right now)

We are nearing Great Financial Crisis levels when it comes to ratio of applicants : job openings (legit job openings, not the fake ones they put out to collect data or justify H1B visas).

If you have an oversupply of workers (which we do) and not enough people spending money at places to justify hiring so many people (which is also the case) then the wages are going to be ****.

That justifies the sociology of it - using the word in a value neutral way. Let's say you have "tallied" the matter. "Summed it up."

But that is NOT the argument those who are susceptible to the OP media are willing to make, and those are not facts they are willing toacknowledge. 

I certainly agree that the function you are referencing is at play - with a caveat. But that is absolutely not the argument I hear being made, day in and day out, from the useful jeering section. 

The caveat is this:The system has made entry applicants so **** sensitive and un-self-aware and unmanageable that the hundred applicants in the line do not constitute actual potential hirelings. To get to THAT number, you have to take a stick and hit anyone under thirty and anyone obese over thirty. You will find the line winnows quickly. 
 
 

Cannonpointer » 28 Jan 2026, 12:43 am » wrote: ↑

28 Jan 2026, 12:43 am

But this would argue for the position of those insisting wage hikes to previous norms are not a threat to the industry.

The question at hand is this: Why is paying the same wage levels in what you just posited is an industry with a larger and less volatile market a threat to that industry or an insult to common sense? How is it that "justice" or some **** ideology is offended by hard working people getting paid a living wage - especially in the face of the math that I presented? Especially in the face of these wages having been paid during the nascence of this industry, when the industry's chief competition came from moms' kitchens, and eating out was viewed as a luxry, not a necessity - was in many quarters quite looked askance at?

I well remember that families which ate out regularly were looked down upon in the very days when employees were being paid a better wage. And here we are at a time when dining out is not looked askance at - a time when it is more acceptable and more resorted to and even seen as more necessary. Hell, nine states have made SNAP benefits cover fast food, FFS. So how is a living wage a threat to this booming and established industry, if it was manageable when the market was so much smaller and had to compete with stay-at-home moms throwing something together?
 
The insistence that these jobs "shouldn't" pay a living wage because these jobs aren't 'real' jobs doesn't answer my question at all. It ducks the question. I am essentially asking a simple math and logic question. Or maybe a complex math question, and there are variables I am missing. That's why I keep digging. Other than utterly irrelevant narrative involving value judgments of another man's labor, do those shrieking against working people being paid a living wage have anything to offer? Any math or logic? 

The industry is at once healthier (forgive the irony) than it has ever been, and paying less big macs than it has ever paid. Yet it has people leaping to its defense in captain saveaho capes, deriding and belittling those working in the industry and insisting that they should accept poverty wages. 

Like I said, I despise the haircut in cali. But his wage hike LITERALLY puts mickey dees employees back where they were when the industry was very new, not widely accepted, still gaining traction. Now it is fully mature, fully and widely accepted, subsidized by EBT in nine states, and paying far fewer big macs to its workers. Make that make sense.

I think it's matured all right. It has become a what-the-market-will-bear situation.
Everyone knows it is peopled largely with unskilled workers who can't find much else. A top rung job it is not.
Even at low pay (and as you allude to: losing ground progressively over the years), the "industry" has flourished.
Why does it need any help at all? People currently still take the work.

A comparison to the 1960's is at least as irrelevant as the narrative you dismiss.
The only thing constant over the ensuing decades is that the jobs suck and just about anybody can do them.

DeezerShoove » 28 Jan 2026, 4:14 pm » wrote: ↑

28 Jan 2026, 4:14 pm

I think it's matured all right. It has become a what-the-market-will-bear situation.

It was always that. It was never not that.

The difference now is that the market is extremely larger, and far more dependent on and accepting of FF than it was in the early days. For the FF industry, times have never been better.

DeezerShoove » 28 Jan 2026, 4:14 pm » wrote: ↑

28 Jan 2026, 4:14 pm

Everyone knows it is peopled largely with unskilled workers who can't find much else. A top rung job it is not.
Even at low pay (and as you allude to: losing ground progressively over the years), the "industry" has flourished.
Why does it need any help at all? People currently still take the work.

A comparison to the 1960's is at least as irrelevant as the narrative you dismiss.
The only thing constant over the ensuing decades is that the jobs suck and just about anybody can do them.

Public policy in many states forces the industry to pay a living wage. Even BEFORE Newsome shot wages to 20 bucks for people who had not paid him off, they were making the 17 buck minimum wage. 23 states are above 12 per hour - 20 of those are above 13. 17 plus DC are above 15. Seattle is over 21. And in none of those states are FF joints shutting their doors.

About 6 years ago I travelled to the seattle area for a couple of months to help a company take over a string of franchised sandwich shops. The challenge was to bring all stores into corporate compliance and shut the ones that could not be made profitable. He was essentially GIVEN the stores because their owner was going broke in spite of great success in a different industry. All the stores were losing money. We only shut one store. The minimum wage was 15 per hour, and everyone in the industry had to pay it. The first move we made was to pay 17 per hour. The strategy behind that was to attract and retain superior personnel. It worked like a charm. Paying well above the minimum wage that had just risen dramatically and caused the panicked intervention, we streamlined operations and had the stores humming and in the black within 90 days. The guy I helped in the acquisition ran them remotely from his base in Las Vegas at great profit through his excellent local managers (55k plus bonuses per year) for a few years, then sold them off to a bigger franchise chain. That chain managed stores all over the country, including states with only the federal minimum, and did not give one **** about the minimum wage. They paid top dollar.

So the answer to the question I keep putting is this: There is no MATH reason FF companies cannot pay a living wage. The issue then devolves to the partisan level. One group of people insist it is comnism if a state makes it public policy that their citizens will not be **** on as citizens are in Texas and Oklahoma and Mississippi and other backwards-*** states - states that workers must flee to get paid enough to live like humans. The opposing group argues that governments have certain regulatory rights when it comes to how their citizens will be treated by businesses. The states where minimum wages are higher generally have much better economies than the **** holes where they do not. Miserism creates want. Allowing companies to practice miserism and thereby inflict want is not in any state's rational interests. 

A businessman whose model requires his workers to live like **** dogs is no businessman at all. He's a talentless hack. My guy that I went to the rain forest with paid his workers MORE than what others feared would prove an impossible-to-meet minimum. And plenty of places paying only that minimum went broke while he prospered. If a company cannot compete because of wages, but its competition is prospering on the same level playing field, then the fault is not with the wage laws. The fault is with management. 
 

Cannonpointer » 28 Jan 2026, 6:24 pm » wrote: ↑

28 Jan 2026, 6:24 pm

It was always that. It was never not that.

The difference now is that the market is extremely larger, and far more dependent on and accepting of FF than it was in the early days. For the FF industry, times have never been better.

Public policy in many states forces the industry to pay a living wage. Even BEFORE Newsome shot wages to 20 bucks for people who had not paid him off, they were making the 17 buck minimum wage. 23 states are above 12 per hour - 20 of those are above 13. 17 plus DC are above 15. Seattle is over 21. And in none of those states are FF joints shutting their doors.

About 6 years ago I travelled to the seattle area for a couple of months to help a company take over a string of franchised sandwich shops. The challenge was to bring all stores into corporate compliance and shut the ones that could not be made profitable. He was essentially GIVEN the stores because their owner was going broke in spite of great success in a different industry. All the stores were losing money. We only shut one store. The minimum wage was 15 per hour, and everyone in the industry had to pay it. The first move we made was to pay 17 per hour. The strategy behind that was to attract and retain superior personnel. It worked like a charm. Paying well above the minimum wage that had just risen dramatically and caused the panicked intervention, we streamlined operations and had the stores humming and in the black within 90 days. The guy I helped in the acquisition ran them remotely from his base in Las Vegas at great profit through his excellent local managers (55k plus bonuses per year) for a few years, then sold them off to a bigger franchise chain. That chain managed stores all over the country, including states with only the federal minimum, and did not give one **** about the minimum wage. They paid top dollar.

So the answer to the question I keep putting is this: There is no MATH reason FF companies cannot pay a living wage. The issue then devolves to the partisan level. One group of people insist it is comnism if a state makes it public policy that their citizens will not be **** on as citizens are in Texas and Oklahoma and Mississippi and other backwards-*** states - states that workers must flee to get paid enough to live like humans. The opposing group argues that governments have certain regulatory rights when it comes to how their citizens will be treated by businesses. The states where minimum wages are higher generally have much better economies than the **** holes where they do not. Miserism creates want. Allowing companies to practice miserism and thereby inflict want is not in any state's rational interests. 

A businessman whose model requires his workers to live like **** dogs is no businessman at all. He's a talentless hack. My guy that I went to the rain forest with paid his workers MORE than what others feared would prove an impossible-to-meet minimum. And plenty of places paying only that minimum went broke while he prospered. If a company cannot compete because of wages, but its competition is prospering on the same level playing field, then the fault is not with the wage laws. The fault is with management.

I wouldn't argue any of that anecdote.

You are saying that whatever business specific to your situation NEEDED "superior personnel". Meanwhile, I think naysayers argue that the "any asshole can do the job" type jobs don't deserve the bump. Perhaps their tolerance for non-fast fast food haphazardly thrown together has tainted the seriousness of the "industry".
IOW What would difference would it make ultimately at lunchtime except higher prices?
A consequence of low expectations.