BloggeRhythms

Posted here relatively often over the past several years regards how Progressives rarely look past the moment, in knee-jerk reactions frequently pursuing or creating causes that will someday come back to harm them. Particularly the minimum wage, wherein their limited or totally absent business experience precludes them from understanding the concept of profit and loss.

For the most part, it seems Progressives believe that businesses automatically earn income and therefore the far left’s job is to obtain as much of that revenue as possible for themselves. And then, after taking their cut, redistributing the remainder across their base of intellectually limited followers in return for their votes.

In the “real world,” however, the reverse is true. Businesses not only have to manage every nickel and dime to stay profitable; competitors, astute customers, taxes, and regulatory costs produce significant pressure income-wise. And therefore, while raising labor costs for the same job may benefit workers in the short run, the increase will force innovation as well for management.

In that regard, yesterday June 23, Maxwell Newman wrote @newsmax.com: “The rise of the robots is no longer sci-fi. It’s happening now, as Amazon has just rolled out its “first fully autonomous mobile robot” for its warehouses this week.

“The Proteus system is not the only robot Amazon has recently announced. A robotic arm, called Cardinal, has the ability to move packages as heavy as 50 pounds, and the company hopes to install the system on warehouse floors next year.”

“Amazon says the robots can improve employee safety, a record where the company has been repeatedly criticized. The company says Cardinal “reduces the risk of employee injuries by handling tasks that require lifting and turning of heavy packages or complicated packing in a confined space.” More broadly, Amazon says automation has “transformed our business.”

Probing further into the matter, “Amazon has actually employed robots for years. Approximately 15,000 Kiva robots, now dubbed Amazon Robotics, were working in 10 warehouses as far back as 2014.” At the same time, “[M]any companies push ahead with automation to cut costs and up productivity.”

While Amazon steadfastly maintains that automation allows “people and technology [to work] safely together,” and that “our vision was never tied to a binary decision of people or technology,” Martin Ford, author of “Rise of the Robots,” a book covering automation offers a different opinion.

Ford told The New York Times three years ago, “This technology will eventually displace a lot of people in those warehouses. I would not say that, overnight, huge numbers of jobs disappear. Maybe the first indication is they don’t get rid of those people—but the pace of job creation slows down.”

Several readers offered opinions of their own.

Will not ever for a democrat wrote: “Keep raising the minimum wage and robots will replace all manual jobs. There should be no minimum wage requirements

FritztheCat11 said: “Amazon to the "Woke generation, "We'll back your social issues 100%" and give you a better life." One week down the road, "Oh BTW, we're laying you off, because we found robots to be less demanding."

1984 opined: “Robots don't unionize.”

Most interestingly, the concept of robotics itself, in today’s day and age is quite easily understandable. Automation replacing humans for rote tasks is not very difficult for even those lowest on intellectual totem poles to grasp. Unfortunately for Progressives though, in the world of grains of common sense, they’re somewhat lower than that.

That’s it for today folks.

Adios