http://www.uk.coop/sites/default/files/uploads/attachments/co-op_economy_2015.pdf

10 years after start-up, 44% of cooperatives survive, compared to 20% of regular enterprise.

Your idea of long running is 10 years????  these figures are neither surprising nor do they prove your point. start-ups are easy to start and a great way to test markets for ideas and have an inherent high failure rate, show some comparisons of companies post 10 years in business and I will happily conceed the point, that link is nothing more than marketing garbage.

Fine, if you think 10 years is short, I can't help you. You asked for numbers, you got numbers.

I asked for numbers that prove your point, you did not provide. E.g. how many of companies over 200 years old are cooperatives? how many over 100 years are? I am sure there would be some would actually be interesting to know the answer. Hell when talking companies anything less than 25 years old is generally classed as relatively new, 10 years is EXTREMELY short when talking lifetimes of companies.

The average age of a company listed on the S&P 500 is 15 years old and that figure is only projected to diminish further.  I bet you that age is even lower when you consider the majority of companies not listed on that exchange. So, no, a company at 25 years is not generally classified as new. A company that's made it to 100 years, is fucking ancient by contrast.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-16611040

highly misleading figure as it is current age of trading entities does not equal actual age of business i.e. when two large companies merge or split to create other companies they are considered completely new companies as far as actual age goes. Average lifespan of fotune 500 sized companies is still around the 40-50 years. Japan alone had something over 50,000 companies that are 100+ years old. The US had more than 20,000 last stats I saw.

When I first started working at a small chain called chicken express right after high school while going to college I started at $5.25 an hour. Within a few months because I moved to cook/everything else I was at $5.75. Within 6 months I was offered shift management at $13 an hour and was promised lead management within two years. To me that was a bunch back in 05 but thankfully I thought hard and eventually quit on fairly good terms. He wasn't too happy that I was leaving. I chose another career that had a much larger income with room for advancement. My whole point on this post is that minimum wage is an entry point and not really made to raise a family. If you work hard enough you can raise up, even in places like fast food. The only understandable reason I can see anyone staying at the bottom is if they have a mental disability and if so I imagine you could get some kind of government help. If you have been working at minimum wage for years you either need to change jobs or you are a really lazy person. I hire people through a temp service all the time and I go through ten to find one outstanding individual. Some people just don't think they need to work or use their brains to get somewhere in life.

You would still need people watching over and monitoring the robots to have quality and safety controls.  A slight mishap over that can be disastrous.  Also, if people still exist then they will want people to talk to.  The one thing that robots cannot do is creativity, because there isn't a technology thus far that's even close enough to replicate how the brain works.  We STILL don't even know how the brain works completely because of how dynamic it is and how such little chemical imbalances can effect our emotions and entire state of being. A brain also grows and diminishes with neuroplasticity.  It can learn and forget with or without the aid of outside maintenance.  Another thing is willpower to get things done that goes beyond what the task ahead of you requires at a knowledgeable level.

For McDonald's sake I hope those robotic arms are also willing to purchase cheap fast food.

I don't agree with the $15 minimum wage as it's absurd, but as absurd as replacing human workers with robots sound, I'm somewhat mixed on the idea. Business-wise, it would make more sense for them to make the most money to keep operating on a grand scale. But that doesn't excuse the firing of thousands of workers.

A compromise for a $9.50-$11.00 minimum wage would be much more reasonable, and it still would be pushing it.