The price comes down on the business side not the consumer. The consumer price may not increase as fast as background inflation on the consumer side but usually due to someone earlier in the supply chain missing out (farmers) or a change in product quality (impact to the consumer)
If you account for inflation, prices on many things have dropped considerably. Microwave ovens, TVs, and computers are all drastically cheaper now than they were years ago.
I’ve never understood the “labor cost” excuse because if that’s the case, why aren’t wages really going up compared to pre-pandemic? It’s nothing but corporate greed at the executive level.
If the property owners and developers are not getting the blame for the ridiculous home prices and rent, why should the companies get blamed for wages not keeping up with the home prices and rent?
Have you ever run a business? You sound like you haven't. The 2 biggest costs a business have are property (lease), and payroll. If companies could afford to pay people $50/hr and their job produced $100/hr we would but that's not reality. How about you try it. Open a lemonade stand and tell me how much you'll pay your labor force.
You demand people have high wages and then also demand that prices or lower or you won’t buy the product. This is what that leads to. You can’t have high wages and low prices and not go out of business.
This is what’s driving AI to be a slave to boycott all rights to work and fair prices and wages, aka ban various opportunities and restrict our lives,fiancés and rights
@@growingup15More like the last stage of capitalism. Once they don't need a work force UBI-( Universal basic Income) aka Socialiam will be implemented
Labor costs are absolutely part of it. Franchisees run your local fast food stores not big corporations and I've worked in grocery for awhile. The prices were getting from manufacturers are whats pushing prices up to the consumer. If I i get charged more as a company, that means I have to charge more to my customers.
@@mr.guzwee7695 Im absolutely sure of this, because I worked at ru kfc. they had an income of 5 million gross and spent 256 thousands on a salary at all. robots are corporate greed in its purest form
1:30 This is what’s wrong with America. Everything is about profits. A company could make $50 billion but if they make $50 billion the next year, their company is considered to stale and dying. That company could’ve had an amazing product but now they need to cut something(usually ends up being quality) to please shareholders.
What is wrong with America is the expectation of infinite growth. Profits are fine but when you are looking to always beat your revenue goal every year that is just insane. Eventually you will plateau and that will lead to trying to squeeze every bit of profit from where ever you can. Then once you can't do that anymore you buy back your shares and the company folds because their share price is artificially inflated.
Profit is how companies survive. If you as an employee wasn't making a profit for the comapny, you wouldn't be there and the company wouldn't exist. Profit is the most important thing for a business. You people sound so ignorant.
Most of this is automation. Though the camera feeds might well be using some machine learning for CV. The deals shown to a customer 'might' also use some LLMs but they didn't mention it. Some companies have already started doing this.
@@Monk_Duck The camera feeds may also be not machine learning but engineering automation. Since there seem to be surely a sensor on the bottom for the weight and bar code sensors all around. Which obviously can be mistaken because people can put their goods in usual messy way. That will cause sensors to take it as "bigger weight" than it is already. Or to produce an error if something is put in a wrong way. Deals may presumably have some LLMs but I doubt it. It could use gathered data instead, which already takes place around the world for many years by now. Just like you get personalized ads, personalized products in mobile apps, personalized offers by searching something, commenting, liking/disliking. Digitalized data that did not use LLM and AI beforehand to give what you may have wanted....or not.
I hate that self-checkout is called "self-checkout" because the machines often error and require an employee to come scan their badge to make the machine work right. It defeats the whole purpose of self-checkout.
No, it doesn't, cause now you've got one person watching 8+ separate checkouts for errors. When one of the eight errs out, the other seven continue being used, the error is resolved, and service is barely interrupted anymore than it would be for a similar failure at a manual checkout, while requiring a mere fraction (less than 1/4) of the original labour costs. That's capitalism. If you don't like it, you should probably, as I have, really seriously consider the intellectual and theoretical value of socialism, because capitalism isn't going to cease making these kinds of for-profit decisions anytime soon lmao.
I was at my local Target the other day and they had zero staff at the self checkout. It was super frustrating because their machine malfunctioned and I needed assistance.
@@RosscoAW One person? More like every retail worker on a rotation. 8 separate checkouts that require 1 if there is literally low amount of clients(which will not happen often, a rare occasion). 2-3 at minimum during nearly typical way. So as much as the usual retail market would have on normal check-up positions. Maybe consider not using one retail shop as the actual case for all retail stores.
These same companies removing labor are the same ones who will cry and wonder why nobody is buying their product, when there are no jobs to pay people with in order to buy goods and services.
Well.. sometimes the shop assistants were not helpful and patient that makes me feel no difference, or perhaps rather to talk to AI that can definitely entertain my questions without pulling their faces
Greedy corporations desperately trying to blame increased prices on workers when it is really just them increasing their profits. Really irresponsible to not have balanced reporting here.
it is true labor cost continues to go up. businesses try to cut cost and maximize profit for their shareholders. in addition, the transformation with technology is the way to go. we cannot stay in old way of doing business unless we still believe in living in the stona age. we are not living in the stone age. we live in a technology world where things evolve, advance, transform. don't blame businesses for doing what they are suppose to do. people need to get an education in order to not having to work hour wages at restaurants and markets. get a good education and go work in an office. don't be one to just use technologies. be one to create technologies.
I can just see someone complaining on "47 pound" of grapes because they gave their child to hold 2 pound of grapes while they are in the kart. While also ignoring the "No child in kart" plastered everywhere. (basing on avg weight of an 6 year old which is 45 pound, as i've seen people put kids as old as 6 (on appearance). in the cart)
Blaming company operating cost increases on ingredient cost inflation and not on wildly increased CEO and upper management salaries is madness. Ingredients and shipping have gotten more expensive, sure, but not as much so as CEO raises and bonuses. You can't claim to be hurting financially to justify price increases and simultaneously pay your CEO $19.2M USD and continuously giving raises and bonuses to those already earning millions and millions each year. ..Inflation is NOT the core problem for overhead cost increases leading to price increases.
McDonald's had $2.9 billion in operating costs last year. The CEO was paid $19 million. So CEO pay was less than 1% of operating costs. The guy may be overpaid, but his salary is immaterial to the costs the franchisees pay to operate their restaurants.
They're blaming the high prices on labor costs. But guaranteed, once they automate everything, they still won't bring prices down. They'll just pocket even more profits.
People will actually have to learn new skills, imagine that. The same thing happened when steam engines made wagons drives disappear, tractors made most farm hands obsolete. Adapt or go extinct, what mother nature has done for billions of years.
@@xiphoid2011not necessarily. There’s already a bunch of bs jobs that people have that can be done quicker but we are mandated to stay clocked in. Humans should be “working” less and enjoy life being creative and doing things they enjoy. The point of advancement is to make life more convenient. We just live in a system that discourages that
No thanks, making food at home is way cheaper now. I'd rather buy the stocks in these companies and associated tech companies. That will make more $$$ to feed you later.
if i have to go to the store and eat a burger coming from a robotic window, i'd rather order it at home with food delivery apps😅😅. There is a reason people go to restaurants, sometimes it's the ambience and the human touch.
Hey fast food industry! After looking at some of your reported financial statements, if I ever go to one of your automated stores, I expect at least a 20% discount in your prices! For those of you that can read financial statements, take a look at their net incomes, and margins. These people can easily afford to pay a national average wage to employees without affecting their bottom line much. A corporation with their investment interest, can NEVER make enough money.
Fast food is ran by franchisees. Not the corporate level unless you're Chick-fil-A, and very few others. McDonald's has corporate stores but how they operate is not the same as the franchises.
They're not going to take a cut on their investments. These franchises aren't restaurants, they're investments. If they can make their 5-6% ROI elsewhere, then they will.
@@shainewinter8264 As a society if we can't see the problem with a very low number of people with large sums of capital "invest" for a number to grow on a screen instead of investing in projects that have an overall net gain for a community besides monetary profits then whats the f*cking point?
The issue with self checkout at grocery stores is that those kiosks were designed and originally rolled out to replace the express checkout lane (typically orders 15 items or less). Somewhere the grocery exectivies forgot this and starting thinking you can send people with carts full into these kiosks where the bagging area is literally smaller than the cart....and expect that to work somehow.
Exactly and every new roll out has smaller counters. I was at Home Depot the other day and they put them in with 1 foot space on one side to use and hardly any room between them for the carts. They were actually worse than Dollarama's and those are pretty bad for space. I remember when the first ones came in and there was actually space around them. It feels like they are driving customers to order online and pick up.
I prefer, "Actually Indians" but its all the same and gets the point said. And they just dropped it and walked away like I wasn't gonna remember this for forever 😂
They these are to "reduce costs to consumer and increase profits" but since the prices STAY high, they just get the "increase profits" part while reducing jobs availability in the country.
Self service at grocery stores is me working for the grocery store for free so they can make more money. It makes me absolutely furious. If I'm doing self-checkout I want a 15% flat discount.
@@youngkim2683 You still wait in line for self checkout. And listen to a robot that keeps talking to someone. So pretty much not much changed. Except perspective.
Happened to watch The Matrix and it was odd how that movie in 1999 literally had this line in it “ at some point in early 21st century all of mankind was united in celebration. Through the blinding inebriation of hubris, we marveled at our magnificence as we gave birth to A.i. “ mmm, how could it go wrong from there?!!! We literally can see even as an infant technology how corporations are just destroying anything remotely good to get an edge on “A.i” from google ruining a decent search engine to Microsoft spying on you 24/7…
Its not that it is more expensive to operate with wage increase it's that those top executives don't want to cut into their paychecks and pay low wage workers more money. Be for real
But the low wage worker doesnt deserve more pay if a robot can do their job better. The issue is the average American is getting lazier and lacking intellect more and more every generation. So instead of us being capable and AI helping us we are incapable and AI is replacing us.
They said A.I is to assist you on ur homework , make your life easy. Then they said A.I is going to be used in robots for jobs no one wants or highly risk jobs..They said AI will be used to predict cancers..But actually what they are looking to is to substitute human work force around the world with AI ..Already big companies like google and Facebook have laid off their work force n reportedly some positions have already been filled by AI. Plz don’t use chat gpt bcoz its using its ai to machine learn for free just to take ur jobs in few yrs
Replace the jobs . How humans can pay their own bills and feed their families and friends take with them to go outdoors without no money . How it work ? No points . Ai replace teachers in school . Save the taxes . What you think is ?
I call BS on the driver of the costs and leading issue driving automation is labor. All of these companies highlighted have had price increases way ahead of labor costs and in the last few years have had increased revenue and profits. Stop blaming a shrinking and almost universally under paid and appreciated labor force.
The biggest cost for any company regardless of domain is always labour. That’s why they outsourced most factories to poorer countries as the could pay less for same work.
I think people are forgetting that the jobs that was once inaccessible without higher education is now starting to become accessible thanks to AI. Those jobs will be the new entry level, low paying jobs. Such as data analysis, accounting, legal, administrators, and IT. Since AI does all the complex problem solving and thinking, I imagine people will one day just need basic skills to do those jobs.
You work for 42yrs to have $2m in your retirement, Meanwhile some people are putting just $20k in a meme coin for just few months and now they are multi millionaires. I pray that anyone who reads this will be successful in life
Thanks for continuing updates I'd rather trade the stock market as it's more profitable. I make an average of $42,500 per week even though I barely trade myself.
Asking me to self-checkout after charging ruinously high prices for groceries is just adding insult to injury. Self checkout is a very effective way of sending me to another store.
I prefer self checkout. Why? They already skimp out on how many people are working as cashiers and rarely have I gone and just gotten a small line or no line. Also, too many times have I had to sit there waiting because someone is slow/something is going wrong vs where self checkout ends up free flow and I can just grab the next available one.
Why should I have to unload my own cart to a belt to then have them scan it and then I have to still bag it. What a joke of a system this has become. Just let me take the item out of the cart, scan and bag in one motion myself...
built on the back of scale of economy of masses of people. now those masses are not needed as much and served their purpose.. the romans had slaves, they valued the slaves for the work they did. our leaders are losing the value of us common people.
and the rich people consume 100s of times more resources then the average person more or less.. ancient people felt rich when they had oranges and spices. too many greedy slobs
Interacting with an employee who is friendly and helpful is such a great experience, yet it's becoming so rare at fast food chains. Happy to see their sales are declining as they continue to drive out the little bit of humanity left in their business.
Because those types of people with bubbly personalities and friendly demeanors are choosing not to enter the fast food industry. Because these types of personalities are becoming rare due to people particularly teens interacting less with people face to face that the ones that do will find work in other occupations that have better working conditions that pay more.
It really depends on the company. McDonald’s employs about 150k people in the US. The ceo makes about $19mil. Let’s pay him nothing and give each employee $126 extra per year. That sure makes a lot of sense….
I don’t think you understand how fast food works. It doesn’t matter what the CEO makes in a franchised restaurant. The franchisee is who sets the pay for their particular restaurant.
@@DeadAir21 you dont' understand. The franchise owner is under strict guidelines from mc Donald's. These guidelines tell them to automate their stores, they tell them who can fix their machines often at a higher cost than another independent contractor. Franchise owners are pawns.
They can spend 2 billion on ai and robots. Instead of paying there employees. And the prices is still the same even without employees and 24/7 automations . Here come more homeless.
As a seasoned investor, I appreciate application of artificial intelligence in modern portfolio management too by notable portfolio managers like Abby Joseph Cohen Services. She harnesses it to build portfolios that balance risk and return across different asset classes.
I know this FA, Abby Joseph Cohen Services but only by her reputation of being a former employee at Goldman Sachs; even though she's now involved in managing portfolios and providing investmnt guidance to clients. I have been trying to get in contact since I watched her interview on WSJ last month
I was a stay at Home mom with no money in my IRA or any savings of my own, which was scary at 53 years of age. Three years ago I got a part time job and save everything I make. After 3 years, I am 56 yo and have put $9,000 in an IRA and $40,000 in my portfolio with CFA, Abby Joseph Cohen. Since the goal of getting a job was to invest for retirement and NOT up my lifestyle, she was able to scale this quickly to $150,000.
@@EdenaCrisi Well her name is 'ABBY JOSEPH COHEN SERVICES'. Just research the name. You'd find necessary details to work with a correspondence to set up an appointment.
The thing is people often doubt the prospects of financial advisors like Abby Joseph Cohen in business/markets today. Well it gives me more time to get ahead while they stew in their own pity and doubts as they childishly complain about those spreading the word
Automation to replace people? More people unemployed? Pass! Human interaction is valuable besides at most companies, the pay scale is unequal. So much compensation at the top.
This is going to quickly be reality in fast food places in CA. Fast food workers now have a min wage of $20/hr and consumers are grumbling at $13 combo meals at McDonalds. I actually prefer less human interaction at most stores. The rise of self checkin (even at places like Aldi) indicates I’m not alone. It’s quicker usually.
One thing not mentioned is the capital and maintenance costs for this automation. It inflates fixed costs to a dangerous level. If a business slows, as it does, the business has the option to decrease headcount to offset the higher costs (variable cost). That is not possible with a business full of robots. Those fixed costs will remain. It will ultimately put business at greater risk of insolvency in the long run.
"...the customer wants a frictionless dining experience..." Yum! corporate-speak translation to English: "We're spending billions on tech we don't understand so we can cut payroll aggressively to pare costs." Good luck with that, haha.
What does he care, he bonuses off the share price. So if he says a few buzzwords and the share price jumps but the company folds because they didn't actually address the issue. Well he gets his golden parachute and glides to another company as their CEO.
Here we go blaming minimum wage increases when it's actually corporate greed over pricing and charging way over actual inflation rate. A simple Google search will show this.
I prefer self- checkout because I can pack my items how I like and avoid annoying time wasting chat from cashiers. I don't buy fast food but I think AI and robot operated chains is a good idea.
@@LaSombraa Shareholders never knew what is AI and what is automation anyway. Even if you smacked them with automated shareholder bot that will replace their existence.
Smart carts automatic transmission for items lists before pay . Cashless cards check out. No need cashier workers? No robbery? No cash circulation accounts… 🤔🤔.
The reason that dont use self checkout is because I dont think its right for them to take jobs from cashires and not even offer some type of discount to the coustomer for bagging and ringing there own stuff. it is a naked cash grab.
@@DeadAir21why do you go out with friends, shopping or eating? Its more pleasurable. humans are literally social animals and you're asking this question?
@@wizaaeed but going out with friends is different from getting fast food. Fast food is getting food fast and as cheap as possible. That it’s why most restaurants make the majority of their money through thru the drive thru or to go. So there is little need for human interaction in this industry. Humans do craze interaction but convenience prioritizes everything else that is why app usage for fast food is so high.
@@DeadAir21 in america perhaps yes. Here in europe, friends just gather and go eat a local restaurant or fast food chain. We only order through app if weather is bad or we're busy
A lot of jobs like working at McDonald's or a grocery store are where teenagers tend to find their first job. Employers always want to hire people who have experience working at a job.
I like the idea of smart carts simply because I like not having to track the amount I'm spending at the store in my head. So that's nice but I hate self-checkout.
I don’t mind interacting with checkers but the self checkout line is usually faster especially at places like Walmart where they can have 15-20 self checkout kiosks.
The problem with KFC and TB is that the chance of getting exactly what you order is less than 10%. If a human can't look at an order and fill it on one type of screen, changing the order format won't fix that.
I run a small nursery and I rolled out self checkout in 2017, I simply could not afford to staff the place. So much resistance until Covid, now people are pretty used to it. For me, self checkout saved my business, also I’m open 24/7 with this system, which really helps people out with busy schedules.
10:39 "reduce costs" is fine when we're not talking essentials. trying to reduce operating costs and increase profits when you're selling necessities like food and medicine is an absolutely ridiculous approach
The future of grocery is delivery. Nothing beats going on the app, tapping the items I want and having it delivered straight from the store or warehouse to my door. No distractions or splurges, you get all the points and discounts and it’s full service. Haven’t been to a grocery store in months!
All time record profits for major corporations all across the board and to absolutely nobody’s surprise, they’re still not satisfied and looking to cut labor costs.
Stop blaming the higher prices on the increase in minimum wage! Those high prices happened PRIOR to minimum wage increases. And we all know that they were artificially increased. It’s all just greed.
The cost of those "instant carts" will be too expensive to justify. If you think about it, its a zero sum game between retailers and customers. If the customer only have $100 to spend, by buying fancy shopping carts it wont increase customer's total spending. That shopping cart will not increase the size of the pie. It only cuts into the store's share of the pie. It will basically increase cost for grocery stores and make their prices less competitive, doesn't cut labor cost.
Yes it does cut costs. Tech carts kee0 getting cheaper. Human wages, health insurance keep going up. Also there are literally not enough workers in the US anymore.
@@PizzaMan5000ultimately, the machine caters to the desires of the consumer. When the desires of the consumer are not met, the machine serves no purpose but to direct the consumer to an unnatural life.
@@mohammedsarker5756 perhaps you’re just not that deep. Natural water is healthier than bottled water. Natural food is healthier than processed food. Personal service is healthier (mentally, and socially) than machine service. Ultimately, the advancement of society is its’ downfall. People who can’t see past themselves are a root cause. Such as yourself. Have a blessed day, and try to refrain from openly disrespecting others with your babbling nonsense.
Much like the Internet in the late '90s, we are now entering the era of AI. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus stated 2,500 years ago that "change is the only constant." People can adapt to change or dig in their heels and watch as their world crumbles around them. An intelligent person does what they need to do to adapt, which means learning new skills or anticipating how they can thrive in an AI-driven world where many jobs that used to be available no longer exist.
I refuse to use the ordering kiosks except to check prices when the menu board doesn't rotate thru the options fast enough. I'm not going to use a smart cart, I will carry my items and shop smaller purchases. Brick & mortar stores already have lost a lot of my business due to pricing. I avoid self checkout at every opportunity because there is always a snag and then you have to try to find the person who is supposed to be overseeing that area, explain the problem, deal with their confusion, explain it again, then get it corrected....and I don't work for your store, I'm not checking myself out!!!
Get out of here with that bs that you need AI due to rising labour costs. Even with automation at this point it's not going to be cheaper than all the minimum wage labour it replaces. Then for automation itself, time and time again all that's been show is having different checkout options is the best. Some people love self-checkout, others hate it. These smart carts are stupid also. You know you have to replace all the ones that get hit by vehicles and stolen on occasion. It's not like you have any employees you pay enough to care about the losses the store incurs.
Automation sounds great for greedy shareholders and terrible for society. CNBC’s failure to provide an accurate estimation of the unemployment and deterioration in the financial standing of already struggling Americans adds insult to injury. It is a moral failure on top of a journalistic failure.
NO! Due to the basic economics of supply and demand, this will lower workers' wages, increase unemployment, poverty, homelessness, and crime because we have no safety nets in the United States. We already have hundreds of thousands of homeless people who are working. Imagine the situation being ten times worse or more.