{"id":1469,"date":"2017-02-22T09:08:49","date_gmt":"2017-02-22T05:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=1469"},"modified":"2017-02-22T09:08:49","modified_gmt":"2017-02-22T05:08:49","slug":"this-has-got-to-be-a-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=1469","title":{"rendered":"This has got to be a joke"},"content":{"rendered":"

A page-two article in the \u201cBusiness\u201d section of my local paper (that\u2019s The Washington Post<\/em>) is headlined \u201cThe working-class job that Trump could actually save.\u201d There are about 100 reasons why I knew from the word go this piece would be ridiculous, a list at the top of which I\u2019d find don\u2019t take advice from <\/em>The Washington Post.<\/em><\/p>\n

The \u201cworking-class\u201d job in question is\u2014wait for it\u2014cashiers<\/em>, the second-largest occupation in the country according to government types who are paid to keep track of those things. The article\u2019s author, a Mr. Allan Sloan, says that \u201csupporting<\/em>\u00a0[editor’s note: I\u2019m reaching for my wallet here] the nation\u2019s 3.5 million cashiers could help preserve the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of low-paid people\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

And it can be done \u201cat minimal (or perhaps no) cost to consumers!\u201d<\/p>\n

(Exclamation added. Sentence, sadly, all too real.)<\/p>\n

The author\u2019s evidence?<\/p>\n

Mandated gas station attendants in New Jersey.<\/p>\n

I swear to Jeebus.<\/p>\n

In 1949 the State of New Jersey banned consumer-operated gasoline pumps, among other things enshrining the employment of gas station attendants all over the state. At no cost to the taxpayers! One-eyed economists everywhere have been smiling for nearly seven decades.<\/p>\n

Mr. Sloan writes that the number of cashier jobs in the United States was the same in 2015 (the most recent year for which such numbers are available) as it was in 2005. Ten years of no growth in the cashier industry even though the U.S. population has increased by 7.6 million!<\/p>\n

Those cashier jobs have obviously been exported to China, no?<\/p>\n

Of course it is automation that has rendered some cashier jobs unnecessary. Ex-cashiers can say hello to bank tellers, buggy whip makers, and Blockbuster Video employees. Personally I think that self-checkout lines are the greatest thing since pump-your-own gas devices, but that\u2019s me. Or rather, it\u2019s all of us. Think about it. If those things weren\u2019t being used, they wouldn\u2019t be there. If customers still wanted a guy to pump their gas (paying a little more to do so), they\u2019d be there too. The answer to this question always involves a mirror.<\/p>\n

Mr. Sloan\u2019s advice to President Trump? He can \u201cdo a lot of good for cashiers and himself by publicly leaning on retail chains to preserve those jobs or even add to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

I think just outlawing new technology would be a lot simpler. And in the words of Mr. Sloan\u2026 \u201cWe\u2019d all win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because going around like 19th<\/sup> century Luddites breaking all those self-check machines would just be silly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A page-two article in the \u201cBusiness\u201d section of my local paper (that\u2019s The Washington Post) is headlined \u201cThe working-class job that Trump could actually save.\u201d There are about 100 reasons why I knew from the word go this piece would … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1470,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469\/revisions\/1470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}