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The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/23 22:33:48


Post by: Easy E


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/business/economy/warehouse-jobs.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage&mtrref=www.nytimes.com

This article seems to think that Distribution Centers will be the new "Steel Mills" of the taht that will provide blue collar workers with no college degrees a path into the middle class.

shopping has shifted from conventional stores to online marketplaces, many retail workers have been left in the cold, but Ms. Gaugler is coming out ahead. Sellers like Zulily, Amazon and Walmart are competing to get goods to the buyer’s doorstep as quickly as possible, giving rise to a constellation of vast warehouses that have fueled a boom for workers without college degrees and breathed new life into pockets of the country that had fallen economically behind.

Warehouses have produced hundreds of thousands of jobs since the recovery began in 2010, adding workers at four times the rate of overall job growth. A significant chunk of that growth has occurred outside large metropolitan areas, in counties that had relatively little of the picking-and-packing work until recently.“We are at the very beginning of a rather large transformation, and the humble warehouse is the leading edge of this,” said Michael Mandel, chief economic strategist at the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington. “These fulfillment center jobs are not being created in the tech hubs that were growing before. We’ve broadened the winner’s circle.”

mericans have grown more comfortable ordering everything on the internet, including bulky wares like canoes and refrigerators. Warehouses, as a result, have become gargantuan, doubling in size since 2010, according to CBRE, a real estate services firm.

And while robots have started to intervene in the process, it still takes a lot of bodies to move hundreds of thousands of boxes in and out of these buildings every day. Warehouses serving the largest e-commerce sites typically employ upwards of 2,000 people.

The hubs of this network are far-flung. In Bullitt County, Ky., south of Louisville, warehouse employment surged to 6,000 in 2017 from 1,200 in 2010, according to the Labor Department. In Kenosha, Wis., once a manufacturing hub whose auto plants turned out Nash Ramblers and Plymouth Horizons, warehouse jobs grew to 6,200 from 250 in the same period.

Those places have the advantage of being surrounded by highways and rail lines that lead to some of the nation’s largest cities. They also have an abundance of cheap land and labor, two assets that have become increasingly vital to companies selling online.



This article os woefully wrong. Automatiojn will come for these jobs very quickly, and unless the distribution center is a huge hub they do not employee nearly as many people as factories and steel mills of old. If you are counting on Distribution Centers to save working class jobs, you are barking up the wrong tree. The only thing that can help is work that requires highly-skilled craftsmanship or direct consumer/worker interaction such as healthcare. Everything else can be automated and hence not a refuge for blue collar jobs.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/23 23:02:09


Post by: skyth


Plus Distribution centers are high stress (Both physically and mentally) jobs that pay close to minimum wage. Paying that badly doesn't give you a middle class. Plus they can just toss the workers out once they use them up and grab a new batch...


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/23 23:28:55


Post by: feeder


 skyth wrote:
Plus Distribution centers are high stress (Both physically and mentally) jobs that pay close to minimum wage. Paying that badly doesn't give you a middle class. Plus they can just toss the workers out once they use them up and grab a new batch...


You mean like mills and factories did before the workers organized? Guess we gotta IWW it up in the Amazon warehouses. Just gotta watch out for them Pinkertons.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/23 23:58:04


Post by: Mario


 feeder wrote:
 skyth wrote:
Plus Distribution centers are high stress (Both physically and mentally) jobs that pay close to minimum wage. Paying that badly doesn't give you a middle class. Plus they can just toss the workers out once they use them up and grab a new batch...


You mean like mills and factories did before the workers organized? Guess we gotta IWW it up in the Amazon warehouses. Just gotta watch out for them Pinkertons.
That won't work, Amazon is already heavily investing in more robots and automation. The can get cheap loans (if they really needed those) to eliminate more jobs in the long term. They bought Kiva Robotics many years ago and since then have eliminated more and more jobs while developing warehouses from the ground up that need even fewer people.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/24 00:08:57


Post by: techsoldaten


Call centers used to be that way, low pay, high stress, high turnover. That turned around and the industry is expanding.

I would expect distribution centers to move this way, for a lot of reasons.

When you send your computer back to Dell, it's not always going to Dell. In a lot of cases, it's going to UPS, who have receiving centers that do basic triage on the units that come in. Some of the newer ones have the ability to 3D print casings and other materials on the spot to restore something to factory conditions.

I think the line between distribution center and receiving center is being blurred right now, and they will continue to merge over the next 10 years. Semi-skilled laborers who can do the things computers still can't do will always be in need.



The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/24 06:26:00


Post by: sebster


There is a very interesting shift in on-line retail, lead by Amazon but with plenty of others following. It isn't about competing purely on price any more, because no-one wins that game. Instead they're looking to compete on unique and customised products and rapid delivery to your door. And yeah, there's a lot more human jobs in there than when it was just looking to emulate an Walmart style least cost model. Most of the labour will eventually be done by robots because that's the only way these models can be fast enough, but above that there will need to be a huge team monitoring performance and fine-tuning the system.

As to whether this solves the problem of a jobs free future economy... well I'm not sure on-line retail was ever the problem it was made out to be. Certainly not purely in retail, which is roughly the same employer it was before the internet.


The problem with declining middle class jobs is about a lot more than that. I mean think about a low pay, low respect job like a short order cook. If you take all the processes needed to make a meal, and if at the end you put the product on a plate and send it out to a customer that's a service job, and largely derided, and you'd be laughed at if you suggested there should be government policies to support and protect jobs like that. You do all those same processes but put the final product in a can and suddenly its a manufacturing job and people will start crapping on about the decline of honest work like than and you'll find stupid amounts of support for government policies to protect those jobs.

I guess what I'm getting at is we seem to spend a lot of time worrying about how to save or restore certain kinds of jobs, which are heavily steeped in nostalgia and maybe even a little mythical, when maybe what we should be doing is working on improving the pay and quality of the jobs are economy has right now.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/24 09:00:33


Post by: Herzlos


 techsoldaten wrote:
Call centers used to be that way, low pay, high stress, high turnover. That turned around and the industry is expanding.


Has it actually turned around? Over here (UK) they've always paid slightly above minimum (to try and aid retention), but are still high stress & high turnover


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/24 09:14:42


Post by: Kilkrazy


A lot of 'UK' call centres seem to be in India.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/24 09:18:55


Post by: Herzlos


 Kilkrazy wrote:
A lot of 'UK' call centres seem to be in India.


There's plenty still in the UK - wife currently works in one. There seems to be a trend towards in-housing for a lot of the bigger companies that care about their reputation, as some people prefer UK call centres (I do, because of the language barrier).

They are very much short-term jobs in the UK though, for students and parents who need the antisocial hours.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/24 09:56:40


Post by: Kroem


Interesting article, I think a lot of working class people have been dealing with this reality since the 80's. However, I think the biggest risk to working class jobs is still automation rather than labour price competition with the far east.
In fact, I can see potential for automation to cause manufacturing to come back from the far east because of better infrastructure and transport links in Europe, but not employ any where near the amount of people it used to.

In a way it will be good as it will cut the economies of places like China and India off at the knees whilst their big population will become more of an economic burden than an asset. Post industrial societies in Europe and the UK will have an easier time adapting, however eventually we will all have to accept a new paradigm where having a job is not a certainty and increasing amounts of the population are supported by the state.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/28 08:03:26


Post by: daedalus


Haha, but seriously, most of the has-been steel mills and machine shops around here at least provided pensions and unions for their employees.

Amazon, meanwhile, actively destroys union movements not unlike Walmart and forces people to queue up before their shifts on their own dimes. Not to mention the active effort Amazon et al put towards the robotics/drone efforts.

Also, I got a day of their AWS training through work. Even on the developer side (which is supposedly an AMAZING place to be) they're creepy fething cultists.

It's the brave new age of hyper-capitalism and Shadowrun is yesterday's tomorrow livin' large, baby. Subscribe today or else your money back*!


* Money back only guaranteed in the form of an equally worthless off-topic rant. Offer not valid in California, Europe, or the UCAS. Money back reissued only after a positive review submitted, and your credit score may suffer as a direct result.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/28 09:44:54


Post by: Ouze


 daedalus wrote:
Haha, but seriously, most of the has-been steel mills and machine shops around here at least provided pensions and unions for their employees.

Amazon, meanwhile, actively destroys union movements not unlike Walmart and forces people to queue up before their shifts on their own dimes. Not to mention the active effort Amazon et al put towards the robotics/drone efforts.


I work for a pretty big company and went on a tour of one of the nearby factories. One of the things they showed us was an automated paint line where a vehicle would run through and robots would paint it. The guy giving the tour was a 45 year veteran who was very proud of it, and said that there used to be 8 people on that line to do each vehicle, and it would take much longer. All i could think of was 8 people in 3 shifts, 24 jobs that are gone.

People like to demonize illegal immigration and how American jobs get "stolen", but man I have to imagine for every job an illegal immigrant got, there are a few hundred that were automated away. It's like how people aren't really good at assessing risk - they're worried about sharks and terrorism, but don't own a fire extinguisher and drive after having a few drinks.


As a side note, that case with people not being on the clock while waiting to have a security check at Amazon warehouses is one of the most pants on head court decisions I've heard in my life. I can't believe it came down the way it did.



The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/28 11:15:43


Post by: AndrewGPaul


The "New economy" is very much like the old one; a tiny minority who control everything else, and squeeze so much out of everyone else that no-one has the time or energy to do anything about it.

I'm not sure who Jeff Bezos and the rest of them think is going to be buying their stuff when we're all reduced to serfdom again; at least the sharks gathering round the formerly public services have the advantage that they're not generally optional.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/28 17:41:14


Post by: NenkotaMoon


 AndrewGPaul wrote:
The "New economy" is very much like the old one; a tiny minority who control everything else, and squeeze so much out of everyone else that no-one has the time or energy to do anything about it.

I'm not sure who Jeff Bezos and the rest of them think is going to be buying their stuff when we're all reduced to serfdom again; at least the sharks gathering round the formerly public services have the advantage that they're not generally optional.


Yes we should all be unhappy.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/28 23:34:01


Post by: Mario


Ouze wrote:People like to demonize illegal immigration and how American jobs get "stolen", but man I have to imagine for every job an illegal immigrant got, there are a few hundred that were automated away. It's like how people aren't really good at assessing risk - they're worried about sharks and terrorism, but don't own a fire extinguisher and drive after having a few drinks.
That's correct, as far as I have read about US manufacturing overall the productivity has increased very much, while output (in $ has stayed the same as before or risen a bit) but the type of manufacturing has changed. The USA used to make everything and now it's more high tech stuff (airplanes, military, tech, limited edition) while simpler manufacturing is done in Asia, and the sector just doesn't need as many workers as before. US manufacturing jobs were not stolen by Asia or Mexicans but were made obsolete by robots and automation (which were paid for by cheap loans).

And for manufacturing that needs many people it wasn't just China with cheap labour but also logistics. Quick and cheap shipping enabled what the cheapest labour force in the world wouldn't be able to deliver. Otherwise retailers wouldn't get products as fast and flexible as they want them.

The same's now also happening in China. Robots have started replacing those workers too, nobody's safe and the jobs just can't come back. Why invest in people when robots can literary work around the clock, don't need heating (or fresh air or even lights), do the work perfectly, without tiring, without getting sick, without needing a vacation, without wanting a raise, without needing paid insurance (or pension contributions or anything like that).


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/29 00:25:05


Post by: daedalus


We do still have industrial-grade manufacturing in the US. I can't speak intelligently on what percentage of that is automated.

Interestingly, though "them Mexicans" didn't "take our jerbs" directly by sneaking into the US and doing so, I do observe that my Ford Fusion is made in Mexico, along with a large number of their other vehicles. I also cannot speak intelligently on what percentage of it was done by people speaking Spanish and what percentage of it was done by machines with service manuals written in Spanish. Personally, it doesn't bother me any more than the other tenets of neocapitalism. Which is probably a reasonable amount, to be honest, but I knew what I was doing when I bought the car and did so anyway regardless.

The "service economy" concept that we were all sold so many years ago seems like, long term, it's the road to some sort of modern corporate run serfdom though. At least if the social and economic shifts that have occurred in my lifetime are any indicator.

TL;DR: Good news is I get my real life shadowrun. Bad news is that I probably won't turn into a dwarf.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/29 01:15:33


Post by: John Prins


Mario wrote:
Why invest in people when robots can literary work around the clock, don't need heating (or fresh air or even lights), do the work perfectly, without tiring, without getting sick, without needing a vacation, without wanting a raise, without needing paid insurance (or pension contributions or anything like that).


Only they don't. Work perfectly or without getting sick. Robots make errors, depending on how well they're engineered, and they break down. I work in the auto industry. Our suppliers have robot breakdowns, we have robot breakdowns, the big automaker we supply to has robot breakdowns. Costly, costly robot breakdowns.

Robots work great when you have precision parts for them to handle. Mass production parts often have variation that's tough for them to handle. Robot welding in particular is tricky, almost always requiring touch-ups down the line by actual people. And there's some stuff you just can't automate, or stuff you can automate but need a very specific kind of robot that's useless for anything else and very expensive. Manufacturing is still going to be done by people for quite some time yet, because a semi-skilled laborer still costs less than a million dollar robot. Especially in any industry where the product changes from year to year (automobiles) or isn't super high volume - the cost of automation, and the cost of upgrading the automation, can be significant.

People with jobs that involve working on a computer should look out, though. All you need to automate those is a good enough computer program. Expect a lot of middle management jobs to vanish in the near term. Heck, a lot of executive positions could also be automated just as easily by good enough neural nets - and they will, because majority shareholders will not give a fig about those executives and their big bonuses if a computer program can do the same job as well or even better.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/29 01:41:39


Post by: BaronIveagh


 NenkotaMoon wrote:

Yes we should all be unhappy.


Eh, like the song says, 'Eat the Rich'.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/29 02:09:31


Post by: totalfailure


The milkman and iceman don't have jobs any more, either. So should we still be using refrigerators cooled by blocks of ice brought to your house so someone still has a job? Things change, according to blessed Tzeentch, and we need to adapt to that.




The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/29 12:30:14


Post by: AndrewGPaul


Except we don't - by deliberate design, I think. If we as a civilisation were serious about adapting, there would have been massive efforts taken as a society to help the thousands of people thrown away by the steel, mining and manufacturing industries over the last four decades. Instead they get dumped by the side of the road, given some paltry sum to keep them quiet, and forgotten about by the people raking in billions running these industries.

I mean, it must be unsustainable? Having an increasing population at the same time as deliberately shrinking the supply of jobs?


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/29 14:42:43


Post by: sebster


 daedalus wrote:
Haha, but seriously, most of the has-been steel mills and machine shops around here at least provided pensions and unions for their employees.

Amazon, meanwhile, actively destroys union movements not unlike Walmart and forces people to queue up before their shifts on their own dimes.


Its worth noting that there was a time when steel mills and machine shops were not union jobs and their conditions and pay were terrible. As I said above we need to stop thinking that the pay and conditions of the old jobs was somehow inherent to those old jobs, and instead focus on improving the pay and conditions of the jobs in the new economy.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/29 14:48:57


Post by: John Prins


 AndrewGPaul wrote:


I mean, it must be unsustainable? Having an increasing population at the same time as deliberately shrinking the supply of jobs?


Neither North America or Europe have increasing populations - this is basically propped up by immigration. Part of the backlash against immigration is because of the lack of jobs, naturally.

What's terrifying is the short sighted-ness of the situation. We need a strong middle class that pays taxes, to support the infrastructure that makes the economy strong. There aren't enough rich to pay for it, not when the rich are spending so much political effort to avoid paying taxes.

Gutting the middle class will cause these economies to collapse and destroy most of the wealth of the rich in the process - because a lot of the rich's wealth is tied up in businesses that will be destroyed. Universal Basic Income is probably the only viable solution, but I doubt there's the political will for it in the USA. Europe and Canada both have strong social systems, so it might work for them, but a collapsing US economy will probably drag a lot of the world along with it.



The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/29 20:34:51


Post by: Iron_Captain


Robot communism people. That is the answer.

It is the future!
I for one welcome our new automated, futuristic and LGBT-friendly overlords.
This will be our new symbol:
Spoiler:

Brings a new meaning to the phrase 'robotic revolution', doesn't it?

Without kidding, I am pretty sure that widespread automatisation will bring an end to the dominance of modern capitalism. The current system is simply not sustainable in the face widespread automatisation. And even better, it brings us the prospect, for the first time in Human history to finally establish a utopian society with a true post-scarcity economy where people have to do virtually no work anymore.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/29 22:33:34


Post by: Orlanth


I know someone who worked at an Amazon distributon cente in the UK.

Very poor working hours, practices and minimum wage. a draconian disciplinary regimen that effected things as diversely as visitor parking with warnings and threats of dismissal, and a hire and fire attitude that offered a toxic working environment and deliberately eshewed any form of work stability on point of principle; to let everyone know they could be replaced anytime and would not be missed.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/29 22:59:55


Post by: Mario


 John Prins wrote:
Mario wrote:
Why invest in people when robots can literary work around the clock, don't need heating (or fresh air or even lights), do the work perfectly, without tiring, without getting sick, without needing a vacation, without wanting a raise, without needing paid insurance (or pension contributions or anything like that).


Only they don't. Work perfectly or without getting sick. Robots make errors, depending on how well they're engineered, and they break down. I work in the auto industry. Our suppliers have robot breakdowns, we have robot breakdowns, the big automaker we supply to has robot breakdowns. Costly, costly robot breakdowns.

Robots work great when you have precision parts for them to handle. Mass production parts often have variation that's tough for them to handle. Robot welding in particular is tricky, almost always requiring touch-ups down the line by actual people. And there's some stuff you just can't automate, or stuff you can automate but need a very specific kind of robot that's useless for anything else and very expensive. Manufacturing is still going to be done by people for quite some time yet, because a semi-skilled laborer still costs less than a million dollar robot. Especially in any industry where the product changes from year to year (automobiles) or isn't super high volume - the cost of automation, and the cost of upgrading the automation, can be significant.
That was more hyperbole for effect. My point was not that they are literary perfect but they are creeping in more and more manufacturing. Even if you were to set up a few thousand new factories a lot of the work would be done by robots and you wouldn't get big increases in employment (like some politicians promise when they say they'll "bring back the jobs").

People with jobs that involve working on a computer should look out, though. All you need to automate those is a good enough computer program. Expect a lot of middle management jobs to vanish in the near term. Heck, a lot of executive positions could also be automated just as easily by good enough neural nets - and they will, because majority shareholders will not give a fig about those executives and their big bonuses if a computer program can do the same job as well or even better.
That's true, we are in a new AI hype cycle (also with tangible results in specific cases) and it'll probably make things more efficient, except the people in middle management have some power to delay that. Workers at the lower end of the spectrum usually don't have much to fight with when it comes to protecting their work workplace. It'll depend on who wins the company internal fight.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/30 03:03:00


Post by: sebster


 John Prins wrote:
Gutting the middle class will cause these economies to collapse and destroy most of the wealth of the rich in the process - because a lot of the rich's wealth is tied up in businesses that will be destroyed. Universal Basic Income is probably the only viable solution, but I doubt there's the political will for it in the USA. Europe and Canada both have strong social systems, so it might work for them, but a collapsing US economy will probably drag a lot of the world along with it.


The claim that the middle class is needed to consume to make the rich rich is a claim I seem made a lot. It doesn't actually work. I mean sure, the current economy is built around businesses providing goods for the middle class, but that's because most of the buying power is still with the middle class.

But economies adapt. If money shifts almost entirely to the very rich, then the goods and services provided will shift almost entirely to the rich. This means the future isn't one of economic collapse, but one where the vast majority of people are almost entirely excluded from the economy. While most of us work for very low pay or collect a tiny universal basic income, to live extremely humble lives, almost all capital and resources are poured in to bespoke supercars and daytrips to Saturn, enjoyed by a scarce few.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/30 13:31:38


Post by: Easy E


 sebster wrote:
 John Prins wrote:
Gutting the middle class will cause these economies to collapse and destroy most of the wealth of the rich in the process - because a lot of the rich's wealth is tied up in businesses that will be destroyed. Universal Basic Income is probably the only viable solution, but I doubt there's the political will for it in the USA. Europe and Canada both have strong social systems, so it might work for them, but a collapsing US economy will probably drag a lot of the world along with it.


The claim that the middle class is needed to consume to make the rich rich is a claim I seem made a lot. It doesn't actually work. I mean sure, the current economy is built around businesses providing goods for the middle class, but that's because most of the buying power is still with the middle class.

But economies adapt. If money shifts almost entirely to the very rich, then the goods and services provided will shift almost entirely to the rich. This means the future isn't one of economic collapse, but one where the vast majority of people are almost entirely excluded from the economy. While most of us work for very low pay or collect a tiny universal basic income, to live extremely humble lives, almost all capital and resources are poured in to bespoke supercars and daytrips to Saturn, enjoyed by a scarce few.


Wow, sounds great!

I have a feeling that could lead to some political repercussions. This "representaive liberal democracy" stuff was a fun experiment while it lasted!


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/30 17:35:07


Post by: Kilkrazy


 Orlanth wrote:
I know someone who worked at an Amazon distributon cente in the UK.

Very poor working hours, practices and minimum wage. a draconian disciplinary regimen that effected things as diversely as visitor parking with warnings and threats of dismissal, and a hire and fire attitude that offered a toxic working environment and deliberately eshewed any form of work stability on point of principle; to let everyone know they could be replaced anytime and would not be missed.


Warehouse jobs are rapidly being replaced by robots.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 sebster wrote:
 John Prins wrote:
Gutting the middle class will cause these economies to collapse and destroy most of the wealth of the rich in the process - because a lot of the rich's wealth is tied up in businesses that will be destroyed. Universal Basic Income is probably the only viable solution, but I doubt there's the political will for it in the USA. Europe and Canada both have strong social systems, so it might work for them, but a collapsing US economy will probably drag a lot of the world along with it.


The claim that the middle class is needed to consume to make the rich rich is a claim I seem made a lot. It doesn't actually work. I mean sure, the current economy is built around businesses providing goods for the middle class, but that's because most of the buying power is still with the middle class.

But economies adapt. If money shifts almost entirely to the very rich, then the goods and services provided will shift almost entirely to the rich. This means the future isn't one of economic collapse, but one where the vast majority of people are almost entirely excluded from the economy. While most of us work for very low pay or collect a tiny universal basic income, to live extremely humble lives, almost all capital and resources are poured in to bespoke supercars and daytrips to Saturn, enjoyed by a scarce few.


It's an interesting concept, kind of like The Hunger Games or Walkaway.

I'm not sure the great mass of people will put up with it, though. Money, after all, only works as long as enough people believe in it.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/30 22:56:57


Post by: Mario


Kilkrazy wrote:Warehouse jobs are rapidly being replaced by robots.




The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/30 23:15:33


Post by: Orlanth


Amazing what you can afford when you refuse to pay tax.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/31 11:32:33


Post by: AndrewGPaul


 Kilkrazy wrote:
 Orlanth wrote:
I know someone who worked at an Amazon distributon cente in the UK.

Very poor working hours, practices and minimum wage. a draconian disciplinary regimen that effected things as diversely as visitor parking with warnings and threats of dismissal, and a hire and fire attitude that offered a toxic working environment and deliberately eshewed any form of work stability on point of principle; to let everyone know they could be replaced anytime and would not be missed.


Warehouse jobs are rapidly being replaced by robots.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 sebster wrote:
 John Prins wrote:
Gutting the middle class will cause these economies to collapse and destroy most of the wealth of the rich in the process - because a lot of the rich's wealth is tied up in businesses that will be destroyed. Universal Basic Income is probably the only viable solution, but I doubt there's the political will for it in the USA. Europe and Canada both have strong social systems, so it might work for them, but a collapsing US economy will probably drag a lot of the world along with it.


The claim that the middle class is needed to consume to make the rich rich is a claim I seem made a lot. It doesn't actually work. I mean sure, the current economy is built around businesses providing goods for the middle class, but that's because most of the buying power is still with the middle class.

But economies adapt. If money shifts almost entirely to the very rich, then the goods and services provided will shift almost entirely to the rich. This means the future isn't one of economic collapse, but one where the vast majority of people are almost entirely excluded from the economy. While most of us work for very low pay or collect a tiny universal basic income, to live extremely humble lives, almost all capital and resources are poured in to bespoke supercars and daytrips to Saturn, enjoyed by a scarce few.


It's an interesting concept, kind of like The Hunger Games or Walkaway.

I'm not sure the great mass of people will put up with it, though. Money, after all, only works as long as enough people believe in it.


Or Elysium. Except without the magic spaceships to let Matt Damon get a happy ending.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/31 17:22:36


Post by: Prestor Jon


 John Prins wrote:
 AndrewGPaul wrote:


I mean, it must be unsustainable? Having an increasing population at the same time as deliberately shrinking the supply of jobs?


Neither North America or Europe have increasing populations - this is basically propped up by immigration. Part of the backlash against immigration is because of the lack of jobs, naturally.

What's terrifying is the short sighted-ness of the situation. We need a strong middle class that pays taxes, to support the infrastructure that makes the economy strong. There aren't enough rich to pay for it, not when the rich are spending so much political effort to avoid paying taxes.

Gutting the middle class will cause these economies to collapse and destroy most of the wealth of the rich in the process - because a lot of the rich's wealth is tied up in businesses that will be destroyed. Universal Basic Income is probably the only viable solution, but I doubt there's the political will for it in the USA. Europe and Canada both have strong social systems, so it might work for them, but a collapsing US economy will probably drag a lot of the world along with it.



How is Universal Basic Income the solution? With UBI you'll have companies eliminating jobs via automation only to have the govt tax those companies to get money to give to jobless people so they can purchase the goods and services produced by robots. No jobs means no income tax and UBI means everyone is getting a payment from the govt every month so that money has to come from somewhere. Companies that are eliminating jobs by automating will have to pay more taxes so that jobless people can have more money to purchase enough goods and services to make the automated companies profitable to run. UBI will just run into the same kind of funding issues as Social Security. Eventually there won't be enough automated companies earning enough profit to pay the taxes needed to fund UBI payments to allow people to make enough purchases to fuel a consumption driven economy. If people can't afford to buy stuff from Amazon then it doesn't matter how efficient their automated distribution centers are.

Walmart is the largest private sector employer in almost half the states in the US. How many jobs at WalMart pay a "middle class" salary for an individual or family? Add in the fact that WalMart is already eliminating jobs with automation and that trend is going to continue and what happens to all the WalMart employees that will be jobless in the near future? Consumerism requires consumption and consumption requires income and income requires jobs. The govt can't get enough money to just send everyone UBI payments that are equivalent to "middle class" paychecks.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/10/31 19:36:49


Post by: Kilkrazy


Think about it in the inverse. Concentrate more and more wealth in the top 1% of society, while taking away jobs from the 99%, condemning them and their families to hopeless misery, and blaming them for their plight. How is that a solution?

UBI is bread and circuses. It is the answer to the problem of the downtrodden masses rising up to guillotine the rich.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/01 01:00:49


Post by: Mario


Prestor Jon wrote:How is Universal Basic Income the solution? With UBI you'll have companies eliminating jobs via automation only to have the govt tax those companies to get money to give to jobless people so they can purchase the goods and services produced by robots. No jobs means no income tax and UBI means everyone is getting a payment from the govt every month so that money has to come from somewhere. Companies that are eliminating jobs by automating will have to pay more taxes so that jobless people can have more money to purchase enough goods and services to make the automated companies profitable to run. UBI will just run into the same kind of funding issues as Social Security. Eventually there won't be enough automated companies earning enough profit to pay the taxes needed to fund UBI payments to allow people to make enough purchases to fuel a consumption driven economy. If people can't afford to buy stuff from Amazon then it doesn't matter how efficient their automated distribution centers are.

Walmart is the largest private sector employer in almost half the states in the US. How many jobs at WalMart pay a "middle class" salary for an individual or family? Add in the fact that WalMart is already eliminating jobs with automation and that trend is going to continue and what happens to all the WalMart employees that will be jobless in the near future? Consumerism requires consumption and consumption requires income and income requires jobs. The govt can't get enough money to just send everyone UBI payments that are equivalent to "middle class" paychecks.
WalMart already doesn't pay middle class salaries. So that's a UBI in reverse, WalMart (and the shareholders) subsidised by the taxes of everybody else pays.

Companies are already automating as much as they can and as much as is sensible. UBI means you have to tax companies and the rich much higher to support the population (and not just increase income taxes for the general population). The average worker can't benefit directly from automation (if their job gets automated away their boss gets the money). High tax rates worked well until the rich started lobbying for lower taxes and since the 70s or so everybody in the developed world has been lowering taxes for dubious reasons: "Companies are just going to relocate in countries with lower taxes if we don't lower them", taxes got lowered and companies still shifted taxes around. And here we are now, countries don't get enough money to finance their social services and safety nets. And with UBI you wouldn't need social security anymore, neither would you need to save money for retirement (or pensions) as you would get UBI. In the same way that the USA already has some sort of socialised healthcare for certain groups there's also already an UBI for certain groups. One just needs to expand those groups until you cover the whole population. And to pay for that we need to increase taxes on the groups that are already wealthy and don't need to work anymore.

If more and more stuff gets automated and there are no "replacement jobs" or new industries don't get created for people to shift into and work there then we'll need some sort of UBI as a simple form of wealth redistribution because the alternative for the rich are guillotines or similar solutions if things get worse (and they probably like their heads right where they are). John Keynes predicted the 15 hour work week but instead we just got what we have now. The whole tech sector (everything from improved efficiency for manufacturing to AI, and everything that got enabled or made possible via the internet) reduced the need for people to work and the service sector can't keep absorbing those workers. Maybe somebody invents a new service or thing that needs a few employees but things will need to change.

We are not living in a Star Trek economy but we'll need to get used to the idea that maybe work doesn't have to be such a big focus of our lives. We can make more food than we need (we just throw it away so the poor don't get it "for free", or we donate it to poor countries where our donations destroy the local agricultural economy), we have more housing than need (but it's left unoccupied because there're no incentives to let people live there for free), we can, more or less, manufacture "everything" at a tiny cost. We probably won't need that many people to keep this going. Why not make it possible for people to actually do what they want instead of forcing them to sell slices of their life for an tiny allowance just so they don't end up homeless and without food? What's the problem with giving people enough money to live their lives? They'll still need to spend that money on something, they won't just burn it. Yes you don't extract work from them but we area already moving in a direction where we need to do that with fewer people to keep things going. Why force people into that hamster-wheel?

At the time feudalism worked "well enough" (for certain people), later we had an industrial revolution and that enabled new ways of living (and improved the lives of a lot of people despite its problems), in the last half century or so we have the tech revolution that against allowed us to live differently than before (against improving the standard of living). Maybe it's time to regulate capitalism a bit more (instead of liberating it) before it allows a few people to leverage automation and tech to accumulate too much power (and we regress in some way as a society instead of improving). We are not living in the 18th or 19th, not even in the 20th century anymore. The situation has changed and we should also change our perspective and how we view the systems (cultural and governmental) we built.

The govt can't get enough money to just send everyone UBI payments that are equivalent to "middle class" paychecks.
It can but that would mean much higher taxes but for some people that idea's just anathema and not to be mentioned under any circumstance.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/01 02:01:44


Post by: sebster


 Easy E wrote:
Wow, sounds great!

I have a feeling that could lead to some political repercussions. This "representaive liberal democracy" stuff was a fun experiment while it lasted!


Exactly. If things continue as they are, it doesn't end in collapse. It ends with more and more people slowly being excluded from the economic system, and with that excluded from the political system.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Kilkrazy wrote:
It's an interesting concept, kind of like The Hunger Games or Walkaway.

I'm not sure the great mass of people will put up with it, though. Money, after all, only works as long as enough people believe in it.


I agree that the masses likely won't put up with it. I think change is almost inevitable. I didn't mean to sound fatalistic about this. But change will have to happen, it won't just stop without some kind of action.

Really, I just wanted to say that if this is left untouched, the future won't be economic collapse, but economic adjustment towards those still able to command a large income.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Prestor Jon wrote:
How is Universal Basic Income the solution? With UBI you'll have companies eliminating jobs via automation only to have the govt tax those companies to get money to give to jobless people so they can purchase the goods and services produced by robots. No jobs means no income tax and UBI means everyone is getting a payment from the govt every month so that money has to come from somewhere. Companies that are eliminating jobs by automating will have to pay more taxes so that jobless people can have more money to purchase enough goods and services to make the automated companies profitable to run. UBI will just run into the same kind of funding issues as Social Security. Eventually there won't be enough automated companies earning enough profit to pay the taxes needed to fund UBI payments to allow people to make enough purchases to fuel a consumption driven economy. If people can't afford to buy stuff from Amazon then it doesn't matter how efficient their automated distribution centers are.

Walmart is the largest private sector employer in almost half the states in the US. How many jobs at WalMart pay a "middle class" salary for an individual or family? Add in the fact that WalMart is already eliminating jobs with automation and that trend is going to continue and what happens to all the WalMart employees that will be jobless in the near future? Consumerism requires consumption and consumption requires income and income requires jobs. The govt can't get enough money to just send everyone UBI payments that are equivalent to "middle class" paychecks.


The economy doesn't care if your $1,000 comes from working or from a UBI. $1,000 in income is $1,000 in demand which will drive $1,000 in production.

You seem to be caught up on an assumption that a UBI can't be as high as a middle class income, but in the long term that's false. Because installing those new robots has freed up the companies from paying a lot of people middle class wages, which means their profits by definition have increased by the loss in middle class incomes. Which means if you tax those companies an extra amount equal to the increase, that's money you now have to pay UBI equal to the old middle class jobs.

There are issues around ensuring any UBI scheme maintains a sufficient incentive to work to the extent that workers are still needed, but in terms of government payments replacing wages there's no issue.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/01 14:42:27


Post by: Prestor Jon


 Kilkrazy wrote:
Think about it in the inverse. Concentrate more and more wealth in the top 1% of society, while taking away jobs from the 99%, condemning them and their families to hopeless misery, and blaming them for their plight. How is that a solution?

UBI is bread and circuses. It is the answer to the problem of the downtrodden masses rising up to guillotine the rich.


Bread and circuses are for people that you convince to support your in your position of authority. The 1% don't need to convince the 99% to vote for them to keep them wealthy and powerful, the 1% already has all the wealth and power they need and the 99% can't take it away from them. The 1% could try to placate the envious, resentful, angry 99% with payoffs akin to danegeld but do they really need to do that? If in the future there's no worthwhile work for the 99%, or at least the majority of the labor force, to do then why would the 1% spend the money and effort to keep them around at a subsistence level just because? In the near future the 1% can build luxurious fortified resorts in remote places, like Wyoming or Alaska, or tropical islands and stay there with their AI, advanced robotics, cutting edge technology and whatever resources they need that they purchased with their immense wealth, protect themselves with PMCs, weaponized drones, etc. and let the 99% fend for themselves. What are the 99% going to do? Spend the money they don't have because they don't have an income because they don't have a job to cover the travel costs to go to remote places just to try to kick down the door of the 1%'s fortified manor house and take their stuff? What are the 99% going to eat when they don't have any money to buy food and the automated trucks stop delivering product to the automated stores because there's no sales to be made to people with no money to buy products? If the 1% hole up and let the 99% feth off, that 99% is quickly going to die off to a much smaller number that will pose even less of a threat to the 1%.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/01 15:17:58


Post by: Kilkrazy


Do you really think that is what will happen?


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/01 15:38:02


Post by: techsoldaten


Herzlos wrote:
 techsoldaten wrote:
Call centers used to be that way, low pay, high stress, high turnover. That turned around and the industry is expanding.


Has it actually turned around? Over here (UK) they've always paid slightly above minimum (to try and aid retention), but are still high stress & high turnover


In some cases, yes. I can't speak for the industry as a whole, but I do know people who work for call centers who are doing well for themselves here in the US. They work in insurance claims, technical support, cable TV and other areas.

The job is not really just to take calls, but to facilitate hand-offs to the right departments and services and do some first-level triage when there's a problem. I'm sure the level of responsibility varies.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/01 15:55:10


Post by: daedalus


When my company used to have layoffs, they'd give severance packages that were halfway decent.

Today I learned that they changed the wording in the policy somewhat. This must have happened a while ago. Now, when they lay people off, they can offer them a position as a subcontractor working for another company for our company. If they do that, they do not need to offer a severance package. Once that has happens, and if the employee accepts, they can then discontinue employment with the individual whenever they desire. If the employee refuses, then they can just shrug and say that they offered a "reasonable alternative".

In doing this, they can skirt any sort of laws that prevent companies who offered severance packages in previous, but similar, situations from withholding them in the future.

Capitalism is fascinating.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/01 16:18:00


Post by: Prestor Jon


Mario wrote:
Spoiler:
Prestor Jon wrote:How is Universal Basic Income the solution? With UBI you'll have companies eliminating jobs via automation only to have the govt tax those companies to get money to give to jobless people so they can purchase the goods and services produced by robots. No jobs means no income tax and UBI means everyone is getting a payment from the govt every month so that money has to come from somewhere. Companies that are eliminating jobs by automating will have to pay more taxes so that jobless people can have more money to purchase enough goods and services to make the automated companies profitable to run. UBI will just run into the same kind of funding issues as Social Security. Eventually there won't be enough automated companies earning enough profit to pay the taxes needed to fund UBI payments to allow people to make enough purchases to fuel a consumption driven economy. If people can't afford to buy stuff from Amazon then it doesn't matter how efficient their automated distribution centers are.

Walmart is the largest private sector employer in almost half the states in the US. How many jobs at WalMart pay a "middle class" salary for an individual or family? Add in the fact that WalMart is already eliminating jobs with automation and that trend is going to continue and what happens to all the WalMart employees that will be jobless in the near future? Consumerism requires consumption and consumption requires income and income requires jobs. The govt can't get enough money to just send everyone UBI payments that are equivalent to "middle class" paychecks.
WalMart already doesn't pay middle class salaries. So that's a UBI in reverse, WalMart (and the shareholders) subsidised by the taxes of everybody else pays.

Companies are already automating as much as they can and as much as is sensible. UBI means you have to tax companies and the rich much higher to support the population (and not just increase income taxes for the general population). The average worker can't benefit directly from automation (if their job gets automated away their boss gets the money). High tax rates worked well until the rich started lobbying for lower taxes and since the 70s or so everybody in the developed world has been lowering taxes for dubious reasons: "Companies are just going to relocate in countries with lower taxes if we don't lower them", taxes got lowered and companies still shifted taxes around. And here we are now, countries don't get enough money to finance their social services and safety nets. And with UBI you wouldn't need social security anymore, neither would you need to save money for retirement (or pensions) as you would get UBI. In the same way that the USA already has some sort of socialised healthcare for certain groups there's also already an UBI for certain groups. One just needs to expand those groups until you cover the whole population. And to pay for that we need to increase taxes on the groups that are already wealthy and don't need to work anymore.

If more and more stuff gets automated and there are no "replacement jobs" or new industries don't get created for people to shift into and work there then we'll need some sort of UBI as a simple form of wealth redistribution because the alternative for the rich are guillotines or similar solutions if things get worse (and they probably like their heads right where they are). John Keynes predicted the 15 hour work week but instead we just got what we have now. The whole tech sector (everything from improved efficiency for manufacturing to AI, and everything that got enabled or made possible via the internet) reduced the need for people to work and the service sector can't keep absorbing those workers. Maybe somebody invents a new service or thing that needs a few employees but things will need to change.

We are not living in a Star Trek economy but we'll need to get used to the idea that maybe work doesn't have to be such a big focus of our lives. We can make more food than we need (we just throw it away so the poor don't get it "for free", or we donate it to poor countries where our donations destroy the local agricultural economy), we have more housing than need (but it's left unoccupied because there're no incentives to let people live there for free), we can, more or less, manufacture "everything" at a tiny cost. We probably won't need that many people to keep this going. Why not make it possible for people to actually do what they want instead of forcing them to sell slices of their life for an tiny allowance just so they don't end up homeless and without food? What's the problem with giving people enough money to live their lives? They'll still need to spend that money on something, they won't just burn it. Yes you don't extract work from them but we area already moving in a direction where we need to do that with fewer people to keep things going. Why force people into that hamster-wheel?

At the time feudalism worked "well enough" (for certain people), later we had an industrial revolution and that enabled new ways of living (and improved the lives of a lot of people despite its problems), in the last half century or so we have the tech revolution that against allowed us to live differently than before (against improving the standard of living). Maybe it's time to regulate capitalism a bit more (instead of liberating it) before it allows a few people to leverage automation and tech to accumulate too much power (and we regress in some way as a society instead of improving). We are not living in the 18th or 19th, not even in the 20th century anymore. The situation has changed and we should also change our perspective and how we view the systems (cultural and governmental) we built.

The govt can't get enough money to just send everyone UBI payments that are equivalent to "middle class" paychecks.
It can but that would mean much higher taxes but for some people that idea's just anathema and not to be mentioned under any circumstance.


The top 5% in 2016 earned 22.5% of income in 2016.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/income-poverty/p60-259.html

The most recent update by the IRS has revised 2014 total earnings reported by tax payers as $9.71 trillion.
https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2016-update/

That equates to roughly $2.25 trillion in total earnings for the top 5% last year.

The median income in the US in 2016 was $59,000.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/income-poverty/p60-259.html

The most current figure for the labor force in the US is 161,146,000.
http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/laus/us/usadj.htm

The most current labor force participation rate in the US is 63%.
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

That means 37% of the labor force isn't working, which is 59,624,020 people.

If we pay each of those people $59,000 that would cost $3,517,820,000

The govt could tax 100% of the earnings of the top 5% and not be able to pay the median income to all the current nonworking workers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Kilkrazy wrote:
Do you really think that is what will happen?


I don't think people like Jeff Bezos are going to keep running companies like Amazon just to send the majority of their earning to the govt as taxes for redistribution to unemployed people so they can buy products from Amazon. What would be the point of that? At some point the money needed to keep people consuming products is going to become too much to get via taxation. Printing it isn't the answer and we already borrow hundreds of millions of dollars per week so funding it with debt isn't the answer either. There's no way to keep the economy going without jobs and human labor is needed less each year. Sooner or later the 1% is just going to bail, because they can and there's nothing for them to gain by sticking around.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 sebster wrote:


The economy doesn't care if your $1,000 comes from working or from a UBI. $1,000 in income is $1,000 in demand which will drive $1,000 in production.

You seem to be caught up on an assumption that a UBI can't be as high as a middle class income, but in the long term that's false. Because installing those new robots has freed up the companies from paying a lot of people middle class wages, which means their profits by definition have increased by the loss in middle class incomes. Which means if you tax those companies an extra amount equal to the increase, that's money you now have to pay UBI equal to the old middle class jobs.

There are issues around ensuring any UBI scheme maintains a sufficient incentive to work to the extent that workers are still needed, but in terms of government payments replacing wages there's no issue.


Of course it matters. Where does the money come from that the govt is spending on UBI payments? It has to either come from taxation, debt or the printing press, there are no other options. There are limitations on how much the govt can tax, borrow and print so there is a limit as to how much the govt can spend on UBI. Is that limit enough to match the loss of income from jobs disappearing as human labor becomes less necessary?

If less people have jobs then less people have an income. If less people have an income then less people buy goods and services. If less people buy goods and services then companies make less money so there is less money to tax.

Can you collect enough taxes from Netflix to pay a middle class wage to all of the people that lost their jobs when BlockBuster video went out of business?

There is a SuperTarget store near where I work. It's a basically a SuperWalMart. There are about 20 cash registers for checking out but rarely are more than 6 open and staffed with cashiers. However, at either end of the line of registers there are a half dozen self check out registers, each group of 6 self check out registers has 1 Target employee supervising and helping. Target now gets to use 1 employee to replace the work of 6 employees with the added bonus of getting consumers to do the work of a cashier for free. Do you think Target pays that 1 employee covering 6 self checkout registers 6x as much as the cashiers working a single register? Consumers aren't getting any price breaks to offset the labor they provide by being their own cashier. Target just uses fewer employees and increases profits via reduced labor costs. How much do you think Target pays employees? $10-15/hr probably. Even when you add in benefits, if those workers are full time which many aren't, thereby allowing Target to not provide benefits, Target is only increasing profits by whatever they would have spent paying cashiers. Even if you tax all of that extra profit from Target its not enough to be able to redistribute it as middle class level UBI because the employees Target eliminated to increase profits weren't making middle class wages.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/01 18:37:59


Post by: Easy E


Prestor Jon wrote:
 Kilkrazy wrote:
Think about it in the inverse. Concentrate more and more wealth in the top 1% of society, while taking away jobs from the 99%, condemning them and their families to hopeless misery, and blaming them for their plight. How is that a solution?

UBI is bread and circuses. It is the answer to the problem of the downtrodden masses rising up to guillotine the rich.


Bread and circuses are for people that you convince to support your in your position of authority. The 1% don't need to convince the 99% to vote for them to keep them wealthy and powerful, the 1% already has all the wealth and power they need and the 99% can't take it away from them. The 1% could try to placate the envious, resentful, angry 99% with payoffs akin to danegeld but do they really need to do that? If in the future there's no worthwhile work for the 99%, or at least the majority of the labor force, to do then why would the 1% spend the money and effort to keep them around at a subsistence level just because? In the near future the 1% can build luxurious fortified resorts in remote places, like Wyoming or Alaska, or tropical islands and stay there with their AI, advanced robotics, cutting edge technology and whatever resources they need that they purchased with their immense wealth, protect themselves with PMCs, weaponized drones, etc. and let the 99% fend for themselves. What are the 99% going to do? Spend the money they don't have because they don't have an income because they don't have a job to cover the travel costs to go to remote places just to try to kick down the door of the 1%'s fortified manor house and take their stuff? What are the 99% going to eat when they don't have any money to buy food and the automated trucks stop delivering product to the automated stores because there's no sales to be made to people with no money to buy products? If the 1% hole up and let the 99% feth off, that 99% is quickly going to die off to a much smaller number that will pose even less of a threat to the 1%.


Nihilism IS the New Economy!

This thread and the 2067 thread are really depressing. No wonder some people want political chaos and "burn it all down" politics across the West if this is everyone's vision of the future. Dystopia, Dystopia for everyone!



The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/01 20:09:52


Post by: LordofHats


Prestor Jon wrote:
Is that limit enough to match the loss of income from jobs disappearing as human labor becomes less necessary?


Technically speaking yes.

Can you collect enough taxes from Netflix to pay a middle class wage to all of the people that lost their jobs when BlockBuster video went out of business?


No one is talking about a literal tit-for-tat "pay for the jobs you cut out of the economy" scheme. No one expects target to pay for the whole thing by itself. There's a huge economy out there, and more than enough money to grant a bare minimum standard to prevent poverty from being a death sentence in itself. This idea that $17.3 trillion dollar economy that continues to follow a general line of upward growth can't find the money is ludicrous. The issue isn't whether the money exists but how to collect and distribute and manage it. The issue has never been of mathematics. It's pure politics.

Do you think Target pays that 1 employee covering 6 self checkout registers 6x as much as the cashiers working a single register? Consumers aren't getting any price breaks to offset the labor they provide by being their own cashier. Target just uses fewer employees and increases profits via reduced labor costs.


That's Sebster's point. Now add in that Target receives large amounts of tax money in the form of benefits and welfare (WIC, unemployment benefits, etc etc) from a population demographic that includes its own employees. Why should Target be able to cut jobs out of the economy, pay those that remain so little they have to use government welfare programs, and then reap the benefits of it all while still complaining about taxes being too high? Which is kind of the absurdist reality here. Corporations and the rich play a big role in the slow slide that the middle class has experienced They bitch about taxes being too high and entitlements for "lazy people" but many of them benefit directly from those entitlements, , and somehow their still touted as the real victims of any proposal to reduce the need for entitles (by mandating higher wages) and yet generate the need for those entitlements in the first place (by lobbying against higher wages).

How much do you think Target pays employees? $10-15/hr probably.




No. Target pays more often than not the absolute minimum. Shockingly Wal-Mart pays its employees more as the company set its "minimum wage" higher than actual minimum wage and shockingly at about 25% above minimum it's still too little to get most Wal-Mart employees off government benefits for being poor as dirt.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Easy E wrote:
Prestor Jon wrote:
 Kilkrazy wrote:
Think about it in the inverse. Concentrate more and more wealth in the top 1% of society, while taking away jobs from the 99%, condemning them and their families to hopeless misery, and blaming them for their plight. How is that a solution?

UBI is bread and circuses. It is the answer to the problem of the downtrodden masses rising up to guillotine the rich.


Bread and circuses are for people that you convince to support your in your position of authority. The 1% don't need to convince the 99% to vote for them to keep them wealthy and powerful, the 1% already has all the wealth and power they need and the 99% can't take it away from them. The 1% could try to placate the envious, resentful, angry 99% with payoffs akin to danegeld but do they really need to do that? If in the future there's no worthwhile work for the 99%, or at least the majority of the labor force, to do then why would the 1% spend the money and effort to keep them around at a subsistence level just because? In the near future the 1% can build luxurious fortified resorts in remote places, like Wyoming or Alaska, or tropical islands and stay there with their AI, advanced robotics, cutting edge technology and whatever resources they need that they purchased with their immense wealth, protect themselves with PMCs, weaponized drones, etc. and let the 99% fend for themselves. What are the 99% going to do? Spend the money they don't have because they don't have an income because they don't have a job to cover the travel costs to go to remote places just to try to kick down the door of the 1%'s fortified manor house and take their stuff? What are the 99% going to eat when they don't have any money to buy food and the automated trucks stop delivering product to the automated stores because there's no sales to be made to people with no money to buy products? If the 1% hole up and let the 99% feth off, that 99% is quickly going to die off to a much smaller number that will pose even less of a threat to the 1%.


Nihilism IS the New Economy!

This thread and the 2067 thread are really depressing. No wonder some people want political chaos and "burn it all down" politics across the West if this is everyone's vision of the future. Dystopia, Dystopia for everyone!



I think it's actually worth commenting how absolutely asinine that whole scenario is. I mean let's completely ignore everything we know about economics, like hyper-inflation, and the basic mechanics of fiat currency, to present a dystopia fit for an edgy teen action adventure film.

If the 99% have reached the point that they literally have nothing they'll either all be dead in which case great job on instigating mass genocide simply to protect your riches rich folks, or they'll just turn all that anger and free time they have towards stealing everything and cutting the rich out of the "new society", which results in them all being dead or having some degree of success that enables them to survive. None of outcomes are desired, and they all make the rich seem like heartless monsters (which kind of just begs the question of why any of the rest of us should care to protect their wealth), but the whole presentation is tailor made to protect the rich from having any of their riches siphoned off to prevent a dystopic outcome from occuring. This scenario is never going to happen because it ignores economics, but invoking it as an argument against economic reform carries a certain irony. Kind of goes to show how absurd debate about economic reform has become.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/01 20:58:28


Post by: Kilkrazy


Prestor Jon wrote:
Mario wrote:
Spoiler:
Prestor Jon wrote:How is Universal Basic Income the solution? With UBI you'll have companies eliminating jobs via automation only to have the govt tax those companies to get money to give to jobless people so they can purchase the goods and services produced by robots. No jobs means no income tax and UBI means everyone is getting a payment from the govt every month so that money has to come from somewhere. Companies that are eliminating jobs by automating will have to pay more taxes so that jobless people can have more money to purchase enough goods and services to make the automated companies profitable to run. UBI will just run into the same kind of funding issues as Social Security. Eventually there won't be enough automated companies earning enough profit to pay the taxes needed to fund UBI payments to allow people to make enough purchases to fuel a consumption driven economy. If people can't afford to buy stuff from Amazon then it doesn't matter how efficient their automated distribution centers are.

Walmart is the largest private sector employer in almost half the states in the US. How many jobs at WalMart pay a "middle class" salary for an individual or family? Add in the fact that WalMart is already eliminating jobs with automation and that trend is going to continue and what happens to all the WalMart employees that will be jobless in the near future? Consumerism requires consumption and consumption requires income and income requires jobs. The govt can't get enough money to just send everyone UBI payments that are equivalent to "middle class" paychecks.
WalMart already doesn't pay middle class salaries. So that's a UBI in reverse, WalMart (and the shareholders) subsidised by the taxes of everybody else pays.

Companies are already automating as much as they can and as much as is sensible. UBI means you have to tax companies and the rich much higher to support the population (and not just increase income taxes for the general population). The average worker can't benefit directly from automation (if their job gets automated away their boss gets the money). High tax rates worked well until the rich started lobbying for lower taxes and since the 70s or so everybody in the developed world has been lowering taxes for dubious reasons: "Companies are just going to relocate in countries with lower taxes if we don't lower them", taxes got lowered and companies still shifted taxes around. And here we are now, countries don't get enough money to finance their social services and safety nets. And with UBI you wouldn't need social security anymore, neither would you need to save money for retirement (or pensions) as you would get UBI. In the same way that the USA already has some sort of socialised healthcare for certain groups there's also already an UBI for certain groups. One just needs to expand those groups until you cover the whole population. And to pay for that we need to increase taxes on the groups that are already wealthy and don't need to work anymore.

If more and more stuff gets automated and there are no "replacement jobs" or new industries don't get created for people to shift into and work there then we'll need some sort of UBI as a simple form of wealth redistribution because the alternative for the rich are guillotines or similar solutions if things get worse (and they probably like their heads right where they are). John Keynes predicted the 15 hour work week but instead we just got what we have now. The whole tech sector (everything from improved efficiency for manufacturing to AI, and everything that got enabled or made possible via the internet) reduced the need for people to work and the service sector can't keep absorbing those workers. Maybe somebody invents a new service or thing that needs a few employees but things will need to change.

We are not living in a Star Trek economy but we'll need to get used to the idea that maybe work doesn't have to be such a big focus of our lives. We can make more food than we need (we just throw it away so the poor don't get it "for free", or we donate it to poor countries where our donations destroy the local agricultural economy), we have more housing than need (but it's left unoccupied because there're no incentives to let people live there for free), we can, more or less, manufacture "everything" at a tiny cost. We probably won't need that many people to keep this going. Why not make it possible for people to actually do what they want instead of forcing them to sell slices of their life for an tiny allowance just so they don't end up homeless and without food? What's the problem with giving people enough money to live their lives? They'll still need to spend that money on something, they won't just burn it. Yes you don't extract work from them but we area already moving in a direction where we need to do that with fewer people to keep things going. Why force people into that hamster-wheel?

At the time feudalism worked "well enough" (for certain people), later we had an industrial revolution and that enabled new ways of living (and improved the lives of a lot of people despite its problems), in the last half century or so we have the tech revolution that against allowed us to live differently than before (against improving the standard of living). Maybe it's time to regulate capitalism a bit more (instead of liberating it) before it allows a few people to leverage automation and tech to accumulate too much power (and we regress in some way as a society instead of improving). We are not living in the 18th or 19th, not even in the 20th century anymore. The situation has changed and we should also change our perspective and how we view the systems (cultural and governmental) we built.

The govt can't get enough money to just send everyone UBI payments that are equivalent to "middle class" paychecks.
It can but that would mean much higher taxes but for some people that idea's just anathema and not to be mentioned under any circumstance.


The top 5% in 2016 earned 22.5% of income in 2016.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/income-poverty/p60-259.html

The most recent update by the IRS has revised 2014 total earnings reported by tax payers as $9.71 trillion.
https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2016-update/

That equates to roughly $2.25 trillion in total earnings for the top 5% last year.

The median income in the US in 2016 was $59,000.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/income-poverty/p60-259.html

The most current figure for the labor force in the US is 161,146,000.
http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/laus/us/usadj.htm

The most current labor force participation rate in the US is 63%.
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

That means 37% of the labor force isn't working, which is 59,624,020 people.

If we pay each of those people $59,000 that would cost $3,517,820,000

The govt could tax 100% of the earnings of the top 5% and not be able to pay the median income to all the current nonworking workers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Kilkrazy wrote:
Do you really think that is what will happen?


I don't think people like Jeff Bezos are going to keep running companies like Amazon just to send the majority of their earning to the govt as taxes for redistribution to unemployed people so they can buy products from Amazon. What would be the point of that? At some point the money needed to keep people consuming products is going to become too much to get via taxation. Printing it isn't the answer and we already borrow hundreds of millions of dollars per week so funding it with debt isn't the answer either. There's no way to keep the economy going without jobs and human labor is needed less each year. Sooner or later the 1% is just going to bail, because they can and there's nothing for them to gain by sticking around.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 sebster wrote:


The economy doesn't care if your $1,000 comes from working or from a UBI. $1,000 in income is $1,000 in demand which will drive $1,000 in production.

You seem to be caught up on an assumption that a UBI can't be as high as a middle class income, but in the long term that's false. Because installing those new robots has freed up the companies from paying a lot of people middle class wages, which means their profits by definition have increased by the loss in middle class incomes. Which means if you tax those companies an extra amount equal to the increase, that's money you now have to pay UBI equal to the old middle class jobs.

There are issues around ensuring any UBI scheme maintains a sufficient incentive to work to the extent that workers are still needed, but in terms of government payments replacing wages there's no issue.


Of course it matters. Where does the money come from that the govt is spending on UBI payments? It has to either come from taxation, debt or the printing press, there are no other options. There are limitations on how much the govt can tax, borrow and print so there is a limit as to how much the govt can spend on UBI. Is that limit enough to match the loss of income from jobs disappearing as human labor becomes less necessary?

If less people have jobs then less people have an income. If less people have an income then less people buy goods and services. If less people buy goods and services then companies make less money so there is less money to tax.

Can you collect enough taxes from Netflix to pay a middle class wage to all of the people that lost their jobs when BlockBuster video went out of business?

There is a SuperTarget store near where I work. It's a basically a SuperWalMart. There are about 20 cash registers for checking out but rarely are more than 6 open and staffed with cashiers. However, at either end of the line of registers there are a half dozen self check out registers, each group of 6 self check out registers has 1 Target employee supervising and helping. Target now gets to use 1 employee to replace the work of 6 employees with the added bonus of getting consumers to do the work of a cashier for free. Do you think Target pays that 1 employee covering 6 self checkout registers 6x as much as the cashiers working a single register? Consumers aren't getting any price breaks to offset the labor they provide by being their own cashier. Target just uses fewer employees and increases profits via reduced labor costs. How much do you think Target pays employees? $10-15/hr probably. Even when you add in benefits, if those workers are full time which many aren't, thereby allowing Target to not provide benefits, Target is only increasing profits by whatever they would have spent paying cashiers. Even if you tax all of that extra profit from Target its not enough to be able to redistribute it as middle class level UBI because the employees Target eliminated to increase profits weren't making middle class wages.


What about people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett?


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/01 22:24:57


Post by: Prestor Jon


 Kilkrazy wrote:
Spoiler:
Prestor Jon wrote:
Mario wrote:
[spoiler]
Prestor Jon wrote:How is Universal Basic Income the solution? With UBI you'll have companies eliminating jobs via automation only to have the govt tax those companies to get money to give to jobless people so they can purchase the goods and services produced by robots. No jobs means no income tax and UBI means everyone is getting a payment from the govt every month so that money has to come from somewhere. Companies that are eliminating jobs by automating will have to pay more taxes so that jobless people can have more money to purchase enough goods and services to make the automated companies profitable to run. UBI will just run into the same kind of funding issues as Social Security. Eventually there won't be enough automated companies earning enough profit to pay the taxes needed to fund UBI payments to allow people to make enough purchases to fuel a consumption driven economy. If people can't afford to buy stuff from Amazon then it doesn't matter how efficient their automated distribution centers are.

Walmart is the largest private sector employer in almost half the states in the US. How many jobs at WalMart pay a "middle class" salary for an individual or family? Add in the fact that WalMart is already eliminating jobs with automation and that trend is going to continue and what happens to all the WalMart employees that will be jobless in the near future? Consumerism requires consumption and consumption requires income and income requires jobs. The govt can't get enough money to just send everyone UBI payments that are equivalent to "middle class" paychecks.
WalMart already doesn't pay middle class salaries. So that's a UBI in reverse, WalMart (and the shareholders) subsidised by the taxes of everybody else pays.

Companies are already automating as much as they can and as much as is sensible. UBI means you have to tax companies and the rich much higher to support the population (and not just increase income taxes for the general population). The average worker can't benefit directly from automation (if their job gets automated away their boss gets the money). High tax rates worked well until the rich started lobbying for lower taxes and since the 70s or so everybody in the developed world has been lowering taxes for dubious reasons: "Companies are just going to relocate in countries with lower taxes if we don't lower them", taxes got lowered and companies still shifted taxes around. And here we are now, countries don't get enough money to finance their social services and safety nets. And with UBI you wouldn't need social security anymore, neither would you need to save money for retirement (or pensions) as you would get UBI. In the same way that the USA already has some sort of socialised healthcare for certain groups there's also already an UBI for certain groups. One just needs to expand those groups until you cover the whole population. And to pay for that we need to increase taxes on the groups that are already wealthy and don't need to work anymore.

If more and more stuff gets automated and there are no "replacement jobs" or new industries don't get created for people to shift into and work there then we'll need some sort of UBI as a simple form of wealth redistribution because the alternative for the rich are guillotines or similar solutions if things get worse (and they probably like their heads right where they are). John Keynes predicted the 15 hour work week but instead we just got what we have now. The whole tech sector (everything from improved efficiency for manufacturing to AI, and everything that got enabled or made possible via the internet) reduced the need for people to work and the service sector can't keep absorbing those workers. Maybe somebody invents a new service or thing that needs a few employees but things will need to change.

We are not living in a Star Trek economy but we'll need to get used to the idea that maybe work doesn't have to be such a big focus of our lives. We can make more food than we need (we just throw it away so the poor don't get it "for free", or we donate it to poor countries where our donations destroy the local agricultural economy), we have more housing than need (but it's left unoccupied because there're no incentives to let people live there for free), we can, more or less, manufacture "everything" at a tiny cost. We probably won't need that many people to keep this going. Why not make it possible for people to actually do what they want instead of forcing them to sell slices of their life for an tiny allowance just so they don't end up homeless and without food? What's the problem with giving people enough money to live their lives? They'll still need to spend that money on something, they won't just burn it. Yes you don't extract work from them but we area already moving in a direction where we need to do that with fewer people to keep things going. Why force people into that hamster-wheel?

At the time feudalism worked "well enough" (for certain people), later we had an industrial revolution and that enabled new ways of living (and improved the lives of a lot of people despite its problems), in the last half century or so we have the tech revolution that against allowed us to live differently than before (against improving the standard of living). Maybe it's time to regulate capitalism a bit more (instead of liberating it) before it allows a few people to leverage automation and tech to accumulate too much power (and we regress in some way as a society instead of improving). We are not living in the 18th or 19th, not even in the 20th century anymore. The situation has changed and we should also change our perspective and how we view the systems (cultural and governmental) we built.

The govt can't get enough money to just send everyone UBI payments that are equivalent to "middle class" paychecks.
It can but that would mean much higher taxes but for some people that idea's just anathema and not to be mentioned under any circumstance.


The top 5% in 2016 earned 22.5% of income in 2016.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/income-poverty/p60-259.html

The most recent update by the IRS has revised 2014 total earnings reported by tax payers as $9.71 trillion.
https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2016-update/

That equates to roughly $2.25 trillion in total earnings for the top 5% last year.

The median income in the US in 2016 was $59,000.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/income-poverty/p60-259.html

The most current figure for the labor force in the US is 161,146,000.
http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/laus/us/usadj.htm

The most current labor force participation rate in the US is 63%.
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

That means 37% of the labor force isn't working, which is 59,624,020 people.

If we pay each of those people $59,000 that would cost $3,517,820,000

The govt could tax 100% of the earnings of the top 5% and not be able to pay the median income to all the current nonworking workers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Kilkrazy wrote:
Do you really think that is what will happen?


I don't think people like Jeff Bezos are going to keep running companies like Amazon just to send the majority of their earning to the govt as taxes for redistribution to unemployed people so they can buy products from Amazon. What would be the point of that? At some point the money needed to keep people consuming products is going to become too much to get via taxation. Printing it isn't the answer and we already borrow hundreds of millions of dollars per week so funding it with debt isn't the answer either. There's no way to keep the economy going without jobs and human labor is needed less each year. Sooner or later the 1% is just going to bail, because they can and there's nothing for them to gain by sticking around.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 sebster wrote:


The economy doesn't care if your $1,000 comes from working or from a UBI. $1,000 in income is $1,000 in demand which will drive $1,000 in production.

You seem to be caught up on an assumption that a UBI can't be as high as a middle class income, but in the long term that's false. Because installing those new robots has freed up the companies from paying a lot of people middle class wages, which means their profits by definition have increased by the loss in middle class incomes. Which means if you tax those companies an extra amount equal to the increase, that's money you now have to pay UBI equal to the old middle class jobs.

There are issues around ensuring any UBI scheme maintains a sufficient incentive to work to the extent that workers are still needed, but in terms of government payments replacing wages there's no issue.


Of course it matters. Where does the money come from that the govt is spending on UBI payments? It has to either come from taxation, debt or the printing press, there are no other options. There are limitations on how much the govt can tax, borrow and print so there is a limit as to how much the govt can spend on UBI. Is that limit enough to match the loss of income from jobs disappearing as human labor becomes less necessary?

If less people have jobs then less people have an income. If less people have an income then less people buy goods and services. If less people buy goods and services then companies make less money so there is less money to tax.

Can you collect enough taxes from Netflix to pay a middle class wage to all of the people that lost their jobs when BlockBuster video went out of business?

There is a SuperTarget store near where I work. It's a basically a SuperWalMart. There are about 20 cash registers for checking out but rarely are more than 6 open and staffed with cashiers. However, at either end of the line of registers there are a half dozen self check out registers, each group of 6 self check out registers has 1 Target employee supervising and helping. Target now gets to use 1 employee to replace the work of 6 employees with the added bonus of getting consumers to do the work of a cashier for free. Do you think Target pays that 1 employee covering 6 self checkout registers 6x as much as the cashiers working a single register? Consumers aren't getting any price breaks to offset the labor they provide by being their own cashier. Target just uses fewer employees and increases profits via reduced labor costs. How much do you think Target pays employees? $10-15/hr probably. Even when you add in benefits, if those workers are full time which many aren't, thereby allowing Target to not provide benefits, Target is only increasing profits by whatever they would have spent paying cashiers. Even if you tax all of that extra profit from Target its not enough to be able to redistribute it as middle class level UBI because the employees Target eliminated to increase profits weren't making middle class wages.


What about people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett?


What about them? The 1% isn’t made up of only bad people but neither Gates nor Buffet can fund middle class earnings level UBI payments for the growing number of displaced workers in the labor force.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/01 23:42:15


Post by: John Prins


Prestor Jon wrote:

The top 5% in 2016 earned 22.5% of income in 2016.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/income-poverty/p60-259.html

The most recent update by the IRS has revised 2014 total earnings reported by tax payers as $9.71 trillion.
https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2016-update/

That equates to roughly $2.25 trillion in total earnings for the top 5% last year.

The median income in the US in 2016 was $59,000.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/income-poverty/p60-259.html

The most current figure for the labor force in the US is 161,146,000.
http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/laus/us/usadj.htm

The most current labor force participation rate in the US is 63%.
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

That means 37% of the labor force isn't working, which is 59,624,020 people.

If we pay each of those people $59,000 that would cost $3,517,820,000

The govt could tax 100% of the earnings of the top 5% and not be able to pay the median income to all the current nonworking workers.


You dropped some zeros in that final figure (3.5 trillion, not 3.5 billion).

Ultimately, though, don't forget that either the people are paying taxes on their UBI, or if they are not, they don't need nearly as much UBI (30-40% less, probably). Also, you won't displace ALL THE JOBS with automation, so you've still got a working class of people to draw taxes from. And people on UBI will probably supplement the UBI with taxable income from ad-hoc work. And a highly automated economy makes a decent standard of living possible for far less money, enabling the necessary levels of consumption. As long as the economy is consumption based, you need consumption to happen, and you need people to consume. The rich DO NOT consume enough of anything to support a consumption based economy - they can only eat so much food, wear so much clothing, drive so many cars.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/02 02:17:17


Post by: Prestor Jon


 John Prins wrote:
Prestor Jon wrote:

The top 5% in 2016 earned 22.5% of income in 2016.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/income-poverty/p60-259.html

The most recent update by the IRS has revised 2014 total earnings reported by tax payers as $9.71 trillion.
https://taxfoundation.org/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2016-update/

That equates to roughly $2.25 trillion in total earnings for the top 5% last year.

The median income in the US in 2016 was $59,000.
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2017/demo/income-poverty/p60-259.html

The most current figure for the labor force in the US is 161,146,000.
http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/laus/us/usadj.htm

The most current labor force participation rate in the US is 63%.
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

That means 37% of the labor force isn't working, which is 59,624,020 people.

If we pay each of those people $59,000 that would cost $3,517,820,000

The govt could tax 100% of the earnings of the top 5% and not be able to pay the median income to all the current nonworking workers.


You dropped some zeros in that final figure (3.5 trillion, not 3.5 billion).

Ultimately, though, don't forget that either the people are paying taxes on their UBI, or if they are not, they don't need nearly as much UBI (30-40% less, probably). Also, you won't displace ALL THE JOBS with automation, so you've still got a working class of people to draw taxes from. And people on UBI will probably supplement the UBI with taxable income from ad-hoc work. And a highly automated economy makes a decent standard of living possible for far less money, enabling the necessary levels of consumption. As long as the economy is consumption based, you need consumption to happen, and you need people to consume. The rich DO NOT consume enough of anything to support a consumption based economy - they can only eat so much food, wear so much clothing, drive so many cars.


UBI has the same problem as SSI, a shrinking number of workers trying to support a growing number of nonworkers. Automation won’t eliminate all jobs but it will eliminate a lot of them. Now the labor participation rate is 63% but it will drop lower, how low will it go? If it drops to 50% that’s 80 million people if we lower non taxed UBI payments to $40,000 that’s still $3.2 trillion dollars a year which is pretty much doubling the entire federal budget just by adding UBI. Where does the federal govt get another 3 trillion plus dollars from? And that’s not even counting additional expenses like healthcare for the tens of millions of nonworkers.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/02 05:31:04


Post by: sebster


Prestor Jon wrote:
If we pay each of those people $59,000 that would cost $3,517,820,000

The govt could tax 100% of the earnings of the top 5% and not be able to pay the median income to all the current nonworking workers.


Where in the feth did you get the idea that UBI had to paid at the current median income? Seriously, why did you just make that up? I mean sure, if you set UBI to a stupidly big number then it becomes impossible to afford. But if you look 20 years forward and assume that we see similar growth levels and that growth concentrates in the top 1% as it has in the last few decades, and you set a UBI that's provides enough to live on but isn't stupidly high, then it works okay.

Of course it matters. Where does the money come from that the govt is spending on UBI payments? It has to either come from taxation, debt or the printing press, there are no other options. There are limitations on how much the govt can tax, borrow and print so there is a limit as to how much the govt can spend on UBI. Is that limit enough to match the loss of income from jobs disappearing as human labor becomes less necessary?

If less people have jobs then less people have an income. If less people have an income then less people buy goods and services. If less people buy goods and services then companies make less money so there is less money to tax.

Can you collect enough taxes from Netflix to pay a middle class wage to all of the people that lost their jobs when BlockBuster video went out of business?


Yes, I just went through the maths of this. Imagine blockbuster earns $100. It pays $50 to staff and suppliers, and is left with $50 profit. The netflix comes along and completely takes over the blockbuster business. It earns the $100 that used to go to blockbuster. But netflix has only 1 IT and no other costs, for $10. Oh oh, that's $40 that's no longer in the economy... except netflix profit is $90. The money is still there. You tax netflix that $40, use that to fund UBI for the displaced workers and everyone is back where they started.

It is a basic issue of maths - if a person is no longer employed, they no longer draw a salary but they are also no longer an expense to their company - the money hasn't disappeared its just been reallocated from staff to shareholders. So taxing the company and using that to cover a UBI for former worker is just a process of doing a +/- to offset the +/- previously done by the company.

There are of course lots of complicating factors. There's no point pretending this will be an easy process even without political resistance, and there will be winners and losers. But you seem to disputing the basic maths of the process, and on that level there's really no argument to be had.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/03 13:43:25


Post by: Easy E


If it is not UBI, can someone give me an idea of the alternative?



The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/03 15:12:09


Post by: daedalus


 Easy E wrote:
If it is not UBI, can someone give me an idea of the alternative?



I think it's tins of dog food until the rest of the population catches on and demand drives that unattainably expensive.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/03 15:18:34


Post by: Prestor Jon


 sebster wrote:
Prestor Jon wrote:
If we pay each of those people $59,000 that would cost $3,517,820,000

The govt could tax 100% of the earnings of the top 5% and not be able to pay the median income to all the current nonworking workers.


Where in the feth did you get the idea that UBI had to paid at the current median income? Seriously, why did you just make that up? I mean sure, if you set UBI to a stupidly big number then it becomes impossible to afford. But if you look 20 years forward and assume that we see similar growth levels and that growth concentrates in the top 1% as it has in the last few decades, and you set a UBI that's provides enough to live on but isn't stupidly high, then it works okay.

Of course it matters. Where does the money come from that the govt is spending on UBI payments? It has to either come from taxation, debt or the printing press, there are no other options. There are limitations on how much the govt can tax, borrow and print so there is a limit as to how much the govt can spend on UBI. Is that limit enough to match the loss of income from jobs disappearing as human labor becomes less necessary?

If less people have jobs then less people have an income. If less people have an income then less people buy goods and services. If less people buy goods and services then companies make less money so there is less money to tax.

Can you collect enough taxes from Netflix to pay a middle class wage to all of the people that lost their jobs when BlockBuster video went out of business?


Yes, I just went through the maths of this. Imagine blockbuster earns $100. It pays $50 to staff and suppliers, and is left with $50 profit. The netflix comes along and completely takes over the blockbuster business. It earns the $100 that used to go to blockbuster. But netflix has only 1 IT and no other costs, for $10. Oh oh, that's $40 that's no longer in the economy... except netflix profit is $90. The money is still there. You tax netflix that $40, use that to fund UBI for the displaced workers and everyone is back where they started.

It is a basic issue of maths - if a person is no longer employed, they no longer draw a salary but they are also no longer an expense to their company - the money hasn't disappeared its just been reallocated from staff to shareholders. So taxing the company and using that to cover a UBI for former worker is just a process of doing a +/- to offset the +/- previously done by the company.

There are of course lots of complicating factors. There's no point pretending this will be an easy process even without political resistance, and there will be winners and losers. But you seem to disputing the basic maths of the process, and on that level there's really no argument to be had.


What amount do you want the UBI to be? You're the one that said that UBI payments needed to replace "old middle class jobs."
 sebster wrote:
Which means if you tax those companies an extra amount equal to the increase, that's money you now have to pay UBI equal to the old middle class jobs.


What current annual UBI payment would be the equivalent of an old middle class salary? I used the current median income because it's literally the middle income, you have yet to put forth any alternative figure.

At it's peak BlockBuster Video employed about 58,500 people in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockbuster_LLC

Netflix has 52.77 million subscribers in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix

A Netflix subscription costs $7.99-11.99/month.

What would be a decent middle class UBI payment? How about $8/hour nontaxed income? That would work out to be $16,000 a year (40hrs/wk x 50 weeks). Let's pay for that by taking $8 from every Netflix subscriber's monthly fee, $8/month x 12 months is $96/year. $16000/96 is 167 Netflix subscribers for each former Blockbuster Video employer getting $16k UBI annually, which is 58,500 x 167 = 9,769,500 Netflix subscribers needed to cover the $936 million in UBI for former Blockbuster employees.

There are 52,770,000 Netflix subscribers so they could collectively fund 316,000 people receiving $16k in annual UBI payments. There are over 161 million people in the labor force with over 59 million nonworking people in the labor force. Taxing over 67% of Netflix subscription fees will cover $16k UBI payments for 315,000 people. If you wanted to make UBI really Universal and paid to every member of the work force, using the same $16k amount it would cost $2,576,000,000,000 which is over 60% of the entire Federal budget for 2017 which incurred a deficit of over $600 billion. In 2015 the total income reported to the IRS by individuals was $10 trillion so a UBI of $16k/yr to the entire labor force would equal to 25% of all individual income.

Where does all of that money come from? You can't take it all out of companies like Netflix.

As of October 2017, Netflix had 109.25 million subscribers worldwide, including 52.77 million in the United States.[7] Their efforts to produce new content, secure the rights for additional content, and diversify through 190 countries has resulted in the company racking up billions in debt: $21.9 billion as of September, 2017, up from $16.8 billion from the same time the previous year.[14]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix

If you tax hundreds of millions of dollars from Netflix they're going to have to change the way their business operates. The changes they make will influence the content and services they can offer which will impact the number of subscribers they can get. If fewer people subscribe to Netflix because it can't afford to offer the same content and services then Netflix has less money to tax for redistribution as UBI payments. If UBI payments are reduced to the extent that the taxes to fund them can be easily absorbed by the companies against which the taxes are levied then the impact of the UBI on the lives of the people who receive is decreased.





Automatically Appended Next Post:
 daedalus wrote:
 Easy E wrote:
If it is not UBI, can someone give me an idea of the alternative?



I think it's tins of dog food until the rest of the population catches on and demand drives that unattainably expensive.


You must mean bags of dry dog food, there's no way we can afford to feed everyone cans of wet dog food. And "dog food" is just code for soylent green, right?


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/03 15:37:51


Post by: skyth


Bad math is bad...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One thing that you are forgetting is that UBI replaces social security(retirement and disability), unemployment, and welfare as well. Plus there would be savings in administrative costs as you don't have to worry about keeping the 'wrong' people off of it.

Plus with UBI you could get rid of the minimum wage.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/03 18:26:46


Post by: Prestor Jon


 skyth wrote:
Bad math is bad...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
One thing that you are forgetting is that UBI replaces social security(retirement and disability), unemployment, and welfare as well. Plus there would be savings in administrative costs as you don't have to worry about keeping the 'wrong' people off of it.

Plus with UBI you could get rid of the minimum wage.


A Negative Income Tax, essentially UBI, was proposed back in the 1960s and it failed to garner support. Instead we got the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit in the 1970s and in theory those would have replaced welfare and social security too but instead Congress kept all of it and just added on the EITC and CTC. I'm sure this time the politicians in DC will have no problem working together and convincing the American people to understand that it isn't that Congress is taking away their SSI and Disability and Unemployment and the EITC and the CTC and Welfare programs it's that they're gaining UBI. Maybe if we all wish real hard, this time will be different.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/03 19:14:26


Post by: skyth


Oh, I do not dispute that UBI isn't politically viable at this point. Mostly because certain people constantly drum beat against it(or similar things) for idealogical reasons.

However, your big argument is that the math doesn't add up, which is wrong. Of course you used faulty math to back up your argumemt like saying 53M is less than 10M.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/03 20:36:27


Post by: Prestor Jon


 skyth wrote:
Oh, I do not dispute that UBI isn't politically viable at this point. Mostly because certain people constantly drum beat against it(or similar things) for idealogical reasons.

However, your big argument is that the math doesn't add up, which is wrong. Of course you used faulty math to back up your argumemt like saying 53M is less than 10M.


No I didn't. I used real numbers, did the math and actually proved that my assumption was wrong. You CAN (in theory) get enough money from Netflix subscriptions to pay a decent (maybe? nobody seems to want to decide how much UBI should be) UBI to all the former Blockbuster employees. Unfortunately, the total number of Netflix subscribers is nowhere near large enough to make any significant dent in paying for the UBI for all workers or all out of work workers.

We still have to figure out where to get the trillions of dollars a year we need to fund UBI. We would need to terminate multiple assistance programs (something we seem to be incapable of doing even when its ostensibly meant to be done to make way for better programs) and increase taxes massively on companies without negatively impacting their ability to produce the profits we need to get the taxes from (another very difficult thing to get right).

Technology increases efficiency and productivity which eliminates jobs. Businesses will increase profitability through increasing efficiency and productivity but there's no guarantee that those increased profits can be large enough to help fund UBI payments. Technology lets you sell widgets from home without needing to pay rent and utilities for a brick and mortar store and pay wages and benefits to employees to staff the store. However, selling widgets from home on Ebay is not guaranteed to generate enough profit to pay the UBI tax.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/03 20:51:10


Post by: Kilkrazy


Why do you think that Netflix is the only company in the world?


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/03 21:25:25


Post by: Prestor Jon


 Kilkrazy wrote:
Why do you think that Netflix is the only company in the world?


Why do you have the impression that I do?

It's a company that is a clear example of how advancing technology changed an industry and allowed a new company to drive old companies out of business and eliminate jobs. It's easy to get pertinent information like number of subscribers and cost of subscriptions to get an idea of how much money they make and extrapolate from that how much could be taxed from them in an effort to fund something like UBI.

How much money do you want to give to people in UBI payments?

Which people do you want to receive UBI payments?

How would you like to see UBI funded?


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/04 00:54:09


Post by: Supertony51


Mario wrote:
 feeder wrote:
 skyth wrote:
Plus Distribution centers are high stress (Both physically and mentally) jobs that pay close to minimum wage. Paying that badly doesn't give you a middle class. Plus they can just toss the workers out once they use them up and grab a new batch...


You mean like mills and factories did before the workers organized? Guess we gotta IWW it up in the Amazon warehouses. Just gotta watch out for them Pinkertons.
That won't work, Amazon is already heavily investing in more robots and automation. The can get cheap loans (if they really needed those) to eliminate more jobs in the long term. They bought Kiva Robotics many years ago and since then have eliminated more and more jobs while developing warehouses from the ground up that need even fewer people.


Indeed, I just watched a documentary a week or two ago that looked into robots and automation at distribution centers. The robots not only kept the warehouses neat and orderly, but also increased efficiency by over 30%.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/04 13:20:30


Post by: AndrewGPaul


So corporation tax from that warehouse alone would pay for the UBI of the former employees and the company would still be better off.

That's where the money comes from - not from income tax on the shrinking labour force. If the companies want the benefits that come from being based in a country (customers, mainly, as well as the transport infrastructure, education of those employees theydo need, a legal system, and at the root of it all, a society that recognises corporate structures and money), then they should pay for it. If they don't want to pay for that, then they can move to Somalia and not have to worry about that sort of thing.

The resources are there to house, clothe and feed everybody. All we're arguing over is how to share them out.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/04 14:24:29


Post by: Kilkrazy


Assuming we decide to retain a money based economy, then UBI would be funded from taxation.

The amount given would need to be set at a level that offers individuals a modest but dignified life, so that everyone whose job has been eliminated by robots and AI would not have to simply die or start a revolution. This would also allow people to enhance their income through activities such as one of the remaining jobs, or by creating art, or other such things, thus rewarding people who use their skills for the public good.

There have already been studies done to establish basic living wages and so on. Those would be a good place to start.

I don't know if there should be an income for children. Clearly they need to be paid for somehow, however you don't want to encourage baby farming.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/04 15:25:00


Post by: Verviedi


I see two paths.

1. Automation leads to all but the most intelligent and skilled people being made redundant, and funnels massive quantities of wealth into the pockets of those who own the robots. The rich refuse to surrender this wealth, and an enormous permanently unemployed, impoverished underclass is created. Late stage capitalism is in fully effect.

2. Automation leads to all but the most intelligent and skilled people being made redundant. The state passes effective legislation to equally distribute the capital created by robots amongst the populace, and general standard of living goes up. Capitalism is slowly phased out due to abundance of machine-created wealth.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/04 17:26:11


Post by: Kilkrazy


The point is, what are all these robots and AIs for?

What is the use of productivity increasing mass production for human consumption without there being a "consumption force" to absorb the production?

To be blunt, what is the point of a robot factory that can build 1,000,000 cars a year, if there aren't people to use the cars?


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/04 17:45:45


Post by: skyth


It's really the prisoner's dilemna. People are doing things that appear good for themselves but when everyone does them causes it to be worse for everyone (including themselves).


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/04 18:37:24


Post by: daedalus


 skyth wrote:
It's really the prisoner's dilemna. People are doing things that appear good for themselves but when everyone does them causes it to be worse for everyone (including themselves).


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/05 05:16:14


Post by: Grey Templar


 Verviedi wrote:
I see two paths.

1. Automation leads to all but the most intelligent and skilled people being made redundant, and funnels massive quantities of wealth into the pockets of those who own the robots. The rich refuse to surrender this wealth, and an enormous permanently unemployed, impoverished underclass is created. Late stage capitalism is in fully effect.

2. Automation leads to all but the most intelligent and skilled people being made redundant. The state passes effective legislation to equally distribute the capital created by robots amongst the populace, and general standard of living goes up. Capitalism is slowly phased out due to abundance of machine-created wealth.


Actually, both options look like this,

Automation leads to all but the most intelligent and skilled people being made redundant. The Ruling classes(those who maintain and control the robots) pass legislation to distribute capital among the populace under the guise of egalitarianism, but only enough for subsistence while keeping the bulk of the wealth for themselves. The underclass are kept occupied with cheap entertainment but live in relative squalor compared to the wealthy.

There is no utopia to be created. Either way, you end up with whoever controls the Robots being the hyper wealthy living in immense luxury with an impoverished underclass who do nothing but eat and make use of the cheap entertainment meant to keep them occupied and not actively revolting. The only choice is weather your dystopia is skinned as Capitalist or Socialist.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/05 08:50:34


Post by: Kilkrazy


Gosh, I'm really looking forwards to that!


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/05 11:51:47


Post by: Prestor Jon


 Grey Templar wrote:
 Verviedi wrote:
I see two paths.

1. Automation leads to all but the most intelligent and skilled people being made redundant, and funnels massive quantities of wealth into the pockets of those who own the robots. The rich refuse to surrender this wealth, and an enormous permanently unemployed, impoverished underclass is created. Late stage capitalism is in fully effect.

2. Automation leads to all but the most intelligent and skilled people being made redundant. The state passes effective legislation to equally distribute the capital created by robots amongst the populace, and general standard of living goes up. Capitalism is slowly phased out due to abundance of machine-created wealth.


Actually, both options look like this,

Automation leads to all but the most intelligent and skilled people being made redundant. The Ruling classes(those who maintain and control the robots) pass legislation to distribute capital among the populace under the guise of egalitarianism, but only enough for subsistence while keeping the bulk of the wealth for themselves. The underclass are kept occupied with cheap entertainment but live in relative squalor compared to the wealthy.

There is no utopia to be created. Either way, you end up with whoever controls the Robots being the hyper wealthy living in immense luxury with an impoverished underclass who do nothing but eat and make use of the cheap entertainment meant to keep them occupied and not actively revolting. The only choice is weather your dystopia is skinned as Capitalist or Socialist.


How does owning robots make you super wealthy if the vast majority of the population is dependent on payouts for subsistence level living? How to the super wealthy keep making money from robots with no consumers to buy whatever the robots manufacture?

I see 2 options, either automation becomes so inexpensive, efficient and widespread across industry sectors that it forces the economy to change and no longer be consumption based due to all the displaced workers and income reduction

Or

Automation on an extreme level (near total replacement of human workers) is only practical and cost effective in a few industry sectors allowing business in those industries to become monopolized by whomever automates the most the fastest and those corporations profit immensely based off the profits earned from consumption driven by employees in other sectors that are still reliant on human labor. This causes a shift in education and govt programs to try to rebalance things between the shrinking tax base of the employed, the growing number of unemployed and the small number of the super wealthy ownership in automated industries. The success of that balancing determines of the future remains as something akin to current business as usual or if we turn into Bladerunner or Dune or Ready Player One style dystopias.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/05 16:08:36


Post by: Grey Templar


In this case, wealth isn't income from people buying what the robots make, its the stuff the robots make. Wealth is just a term for any object with value.

The wealthy are the ones who control the output of the robots. They give up just enough to keep the filthy peasentry in line while keeping the rest for themselves.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/06 03:52:38


Post by: sebster


Prestor Jon wrote:
What amount do you want the UBI to be? You're the one that said that UBI payments needed to replace "old middle class jobs."


And you made the assumption that it had to be at the same rate of pay, because these people cannot be worse off. That's your assumption.

Here's how this shakes out - people who end up on UBI will be worse off. They'll be better off than today's welfare benefits, but they'll be closer to that than to current middle class living standards. People who are still working will be considerably better off, and the people who own the factories and AI services will be vastly better off.

You may read that and think 'well that sounds horrible why would we want that?'. And you'd be right. This is not the future that people want. UBI is not a utopia, it's a policy to offset a possible horrible future where most people have been made redundant by the AI driven economy. It's preferable to the 'no UBI' future, where people still don't have jobs but they also don't have any money, and the rich have even more money.

Where does all of that money come from? You can't take it all out of companies like Netflix.


I have literally explained this twice now. I'll go for a third time, please just fething go with me on this.

There's a pie, its called GDP. It's the sum total of everything produced in the country in the year. Everything in that pie gets split between all the people in the country. Now that pie can get bigger or smaller, typically year on year is gets a little bit bigger, and sometimes recessions can cause the pie to get smaller, but what we're talking about here is substitution, replacing one form of input, labour, with another form of input, capital (robots and AI), while leaving overall production the same as before. So there's no impact on the overall size of the pie, its just a question of how it gets split up.

So consider David goes in to work on Monday morning and in his cubicle there's now a robot sitting there, drinking coffee and complaining about Mavis in accounts and doing everything that David would normally be doing on a Monday morning, except getting paid. So where did David's wage go? It didn't disappear from the economy. Because part of it went to pay for the maintenance of robot, but the rest either went as a bonus to David's boss for getting rid of David, or to shareholder's as greater profit allocations. That's just a mathematical thing - profit is revenue minus expenses. Whatever you reduce expenses by automatically shifts to profits, as a simple issue of arithmetic.

So by definition the amount of lost wages from the economy must be equal to the increase in profits of all companies. So there simply is no issue with there not being enough money to pay for transfer payments for people who've been replaced by AI and robots. There are lots of cultural issues, and proper incentive issues, and special interest issues, all of which could make a UBI impossible. And of course none of this may come to pass, we may find like in the past technology works overall to increase labour productivity rather than replace it, so none of this may be necessary at all.

But if it does prove to be necessary if the demand for labour disappears, then whatever issues UBI will have, whether or not it could be funded is not one of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Prestor Jon wrote:
A Negative Income Tax, essentially UBI, was proposed back in the 1960s and it failed to garner support.


The difference is that the future economy is potentially going to be wildly different to the economy of the 1960s.

The labour participation rate has been in decline for a long time now. Mostly due to demographic reasons but there are signs on the horizon that there will be huge reductions in jobs due to technology. And not just low wage jobs, but middle and high income jobs are now being replaced by tech for the first time. We've been replacing labour with machines for centuries, of course, but the difference this time is there is no certainty that there will be new jobs in new fields to maintain the overall level of employment.

So back at the start of the industrial revolution, the fields were enclosed and surplus labour pushed off the farms, those people found work in the new industries in the expanding cities. But that worked because freeing up that labour and it moved in to new areas of resource extraction and processing those resources. Coal production expanded and produced new goods. But what happens tomorrow when a bank sweeps 20,000 people out of its processing staff? Resource extraction is pushing against very steep marginal costs, so unless we find new forms of low cost resource extraction* that labour doesn't move to a new economic sector, instead it is simply removed from the economy.

If the participation keeps dropping, and companies don't even lay people off but just don't expand employment with the economy, then what happens when we reach 55% participation? Or what about 50%, when half the people in the country aren't working? If this happens, and its possible, when do you start looking at totally different economic structures, like UBI?



*Which is possible, and represents the technological fix to this issue. Its basically the hope that solar power generation will continue its current price plunge for another decade or so, and so energy becomes a near zero cost.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Kilkrazy wrote:
The point is, what are all these robots and AIs for?

What is the use of productivity increasing mass production for human consumption without there being a "consumption force" to absorb the production?

To be blunt, what is the point of a robot factory that can build 1,000,000 cars a year, if there aren't people to use the cars?


Assuming there's no UBI or some other thing to give the bulk of the population some portion of the economic production, then the robots stop making mid-priced cars. They shift to high end, bespoke super cars with insane levels of finishing. They start building spaceships for space vacations for the mega-rich. The small cache of commercially successful artists stop doing 30,000 seat stadium, and start doing 30 seat performances with tickets at $50k a piece.

Basically the economy shifts from providing base goods for millions to providing ultra-high end goods for a few.

The rest of us just suck it up, and start eating rats off sticks. This is also more or less what the future will be if the UBI or other similar process is set very low.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Prestor Jon wrote:
How does owning robots make you super wealthy if the vast majority of the population is dependent on payouts for subsistence level living? How to the super wealthy keep making money from robots with no consumers to buy whatever the robots manufacture?


Because what is produced is shifted. If you have capital that that can produce $1bn worth of stuff, instead of making $1bn worth of cars, and selling them and making $100m profit to spend on rich people stuff, instead you make $1bn worth of rich people stuff like rockets for space tourism and gold plated toothbrushes. You trade this rich people stuff with the other rich people, or you use it to make stuff directly for yourself.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/06 14:28:23


Post by: Easy E


Well, since everyone seems to "see" this future of Oligarchy uber alles; what is one to do about it, eh?



The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/06 16:01:44


Post by: Grey Templar


 Easy E wrote:
Well, since everyone seems to "see" this future of Oligarchy uber alles; what is one to do about it, eh?


Well, you could artificially limit the creation of labor saving devices. Require that you employ X quantity of humans to make a particular product. Outright ban certain industries from automating themselves.

Besides that, you can't do anything to stop this.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/06 16:37:36


Post by: Kilkrazy


Raise the black flag.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/06 23:10:36


Post by: Mario


sebster wrote:Assuming there's no UBI or some other thing to give the bulk of the population some portion of the economic production, then the robots stop making mid-priced cars. They shift to high end, bespoke super cars with insane levels of finishing. They start building spaceships for space vacations for the mega-rich. The small cache of commercially successful artists stop doing 30,000 seat stadium, and start doing 30 seat performances with tickets at $50k a piece.

Basically the economy shifts from providing base goods for millions to providing ultra-high end goods for a few.
That's a bit like GW shifting from a gaming company (for the masses) to a collector company (for people willing to spend a lot of a few models). The only problems with that idea is that even the super rich (who might end up with even more money) don't have unlimited space (they have to put all the stuff they bought somewhere) or time. After the xth expensive dinner with acrobats you might want a simple burger and all the "luxury experience" providing companies are competing against each other for a very limited pool of customers.

The rest of us just suck it up, and start eating rats off sticks. This is also more or less what the future will be if the UBI or other similar process is set very low.
That also the moment where you can get rich by investing in guillotines. History has shown that once the population has noting to lose it's the powerful who tend to lose their heads (if they can's divert that anger).



The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/07 05:47:48


Post by: sebster


 Easy E wrote:
Well, since everyone seems to "see" this future of Oligarchy uber alles; what is one to do about it, eh?



1) It isn't just about oligarchs or concentration of wealth. It's more to do with productivity increasing without new natural resources inflows. So instead of people being pushed off the farms and going to work in coal mines and new coal powered factories to produce all new products, now people get replaced by AI and robots and have no new industries to go in to.
2) There's still plenty of hope it won't happen. It might not. It was predicted previously, famously by Keynes, and it didn't happen.
3) If it does happen, it is possible that we will respond to reduced demand for labour by having people work less hours each. But that'd be a reversal of current trends, and I just don't think we are anywhere near ready to do that as a society. Status is too tightly connected to material wealth right now.
4) So a UBI is the more likely option, as it ensures people will have enough to live on, without disrupting our precious meritocracy assumptions. But even that's got a hell of a lot resistance culturally, and so its most likely form will probably be pretty skimpy.
5) On a personal level, I think it's wise to assume that if the issue does happen, the response will be pretty mediocre, and so it is smart to future proof yourself by making sure you've got a healthy share of income producing assets. Save and invest, and then even if there is no end of labour, or society's response is positive and fair, then you'll still have a nice nest egg. And if the worst happens, well you want to be on the side with assets, not the side without. Saving isn't possible for everyone of course, but if you are in a position where you can really save, then you'd be smart to do so.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Mario wrote:
That's a bit like GW shifting from a gaming company (for the masses) to a collector company (for people willing to spend a lot of a few models). The only problems with that idea is that even the super rich (who might end up with even more money) don't have unlimited space (they have to put all the stuff they bought somewhere) or time. After the xth expensive dinner with acrobats you might want a simple burger and all the "luxury experience" providing companies are competing against each other for a very limited pool of customers.


Sure, but if that's where the money is, that's where the business will be. I don't disagree that much of the money will be squandered on novelty and wildly overpriced nonsense, but that happens now with the mega rich.

That also the moment where you can get rich by investing in guillotines. History has shown that once the population has noting to lose it's the powerful who tend to lose their heads (if they can's divert that anger).


Human history is defined by the overwhelming majority living in poverty. There were revolutions, but they are remembered because they were notable events, most of the time these systems were stable.

I read a little while back that people with nothing don't revolt. It's people who fear they're about to lose something who revolt. Which is to be fair the big hope that this kind of system might be overcome, even democratically it might cause the rise of new parties with new radical policy sets. But that in itself is no solution necessarily - what policy set will this new radical party be bringing in?


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/07 14:27:22


Post by: Easy E


 sebster wrote:
 Easy E wrote:
Well, since everyone seems to "see" this future of Oligarchy uber alles; what is one to do about it, eh?



1) It isn't just about oligarchs or concentration of wealth. It's more to do with productivity increasing without new natural resources inflows. So instead of people being pushed off the farms and going to work in coal mines and new coal powered factories to produce all new products, now people get replaced by AI and robots and have no new industries to go in to.
2) There's still plenty of hope it won't happen. It might not. It was predicted previously, famously by Keynes, and it didn't happen.
3) If it does happen, it is possible that we will respond to reduced demand for labour by having people work less hours each. But that'd be a reversal of current trends, and I just don't think we are anywhere near ready to do that as a society. Status is too tightly connected to material wealth right now.
4) So a UBI is the more likely option, as it ensures people will have enough to live on, without disrupting our precious meritocracy assumptions. But even that's got a hell of a lot resistance culturally, and so its most likely form will probably be pretty skimpy.
5) On a personal level, I think it's wise to assume that if the issue does happen, the response will be pretty mediocre, and so it is smart to future proof yourself by making sure you've got a healthy share of income producing assets. Save and invest, and then even if there is no end of labour, or society's response is positive and fair, then you'll still have a nice nest egg. And if the worst happens, well you want to be on the side with assets, not the side without. Saving isn't possible for everyone of course, but if you are in a position where you can really save, then you'd be smart to do so.


My point is all thsi Doom and Gloom nihilism is a bit.... premature. All this Nihilism is not a great way to move society/civilization forward. After all, if it is all pointless anyway then why do anything?

Your comment in the other thread about the Children of Men applies in this thread just as much.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/10 15:30:42


Post by: daedalus


My coworker watched a video presentation made by our company about our healthcare options and suggestions on how to pick the proper one for yourself during the annual enrollment period. It listed "helpful suggestions" on how to cut personal healthcare costs. In it, one of the suggestions was "talk to your doctor about obtaining free samples of prescription drugs."

I literally now have to assume that the expectation that we should be doing this is baked into our healthcare plans now.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/10 15:34:47


Post by: Kilkrazy


It seems an odd notion given that US healthcare is built around the principle of profit.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/10 15:40:49


Post by: daedalus


I dunno about that. We bulid everything around the principle of profit, from government to charity to infrastructure.

I think it's far odder that more people aren't really disturbed by it.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/10 15:44:52


Post by: Kilkrazy


I mean it's odd to expect the doctor who makes some of his money by selling you drugs to give you them for free.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/10 15:54:11


Post by: daedalus


Oh yeah, for places that have their own pharmacy, I could totally see that.

Over here, most of the doctor's offices I've been in don't have their own pharmacy. I know of a couple of them that have, particularly the "urgent care" style places, but otherwise the prescriptions are usually electronically forwarded to a pharmacy of the patient's choice. This could be a walmart or grocery store, or a smaller drug and beauty type place like a walgreens or CVS. The latter two have drive through services similar to a bank teller.

To the best of my knowledge though, most doctors still would have samples laying around. I got handed a week or so worth of antidepressant samples probably 8 or 9 years ago because I offhandedly mentioned something along the lines of that I'd "been a little bummed out lately" when he asked me how I was doing. The actual reason I was in there because I had the flu and a really high temperature.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/10 16:27:33


Post by: Easy E


 Kilkrazy wrote:
I mean it's odd to expect the doctor who makes some of his money by selling you drugs to give you them for free.


It is the same method as a street pusher....give you a taste and then.... welll you know the rest.



The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/10 16:43:49


Post by: daedalus


 Easy E wrote:
 Kilkrazy wrote:
I mean it's odd to expect the doctor who makes some of his money by selling you drugs to give you them for free.


It is the same method as a street pusher....give you a taste and then.... welll you know the rest.



Actually, given the kinds of horrible things some drugs do when you stop taking them, yeah, in a lot of ways it is.

My thyroid meds are that way, and I'm pretty sure almost all anti-depressants usually have some pretty crazy side effects when you stop them.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/10 16:51:29


Post by: Kilkrazy


In the UK one nickname for them is "wobbly eggs".


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/10 19:21:53


Post by: Iron_Captain


 sebster wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Prestor Jon wrote:
How does owning robots make you super wealthy if the vast majority of the population is dependent on payouts for subsistence level living? How to the super wealthy keep making money from robots with no consumers to buy whatever the robots manufacture?


Because what is produced is shifted. If you have capital that that can produce $1bn worth of stuff, instead of making $1bn worth of cars, and selling them and making $100m profit to spend on rich people stuff, instead you make $1bn worth of rich people stuff like rockets for space tourism and gold plated toothbrushes. You trade this rich people stuff with the other rich people, or you use it to make stuff directly for yourself.

But rich people stuff is only rich people stuff because it is rare and valuable? What is the point of having a gold plated toothbrush if you can just have your robots churn out gold plated toothbrushes by the shipload? And if you only need a few gold plated toothbrushes, then why bother having expensive robots at all instead of the way cheaper process to just ask a goldsmith to make you a fully customised exclusive gold plated toothbrush?
When it comes to elite goods, mass production simply doesn't work. Mass produced goods can not be elite goods. And if you don't need mass production, you do not need robots. Elite goods are exclusive, and if exclusive is what you want humans will be able to do that more cheaply and effectively than robots.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/10 19:30:06


Post by: daedalus


 Iron_Captain wrote:
But rich people stuff is only rich people stuff because it is rare and valuable? What is the point of having a gold plated toothbrush if you can just have your robots churn out gold plated toothbrushes by the shipload? And if you only need a few gold plated toothbrushes, then why bother having expensive robots at all instead of the way cheaper process to just ask a goldsmith to make you a fully customised exclusive gold plated toothbrush?`


I don't know about yours, but MY gold plated toothbrush is better because the gold was procured by artisinal economists from free-range bespoke middle classers, delicately squeezed enough into having their gold deposited into pawn shops, and then reclaimed by tenement lords for the electroplating process, which is actually done by the latest in ergonomic Japanese robots.

It's entirely cruelty free and valid when you consider that no one else's feelings matter but my own.





The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/10 20:25:40


Post by: Kilkrazy


Gold? Pah!

My toothbrushes are platinum-iridium-uranium alloy.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/10 21:27:39


Post by: A Town Called Malus


 Kilkrazy wrote:
Gold? Pah!

My toothbrushes are platinum-iridium-uranium alloy.


The radiation really helps to give your smile that extra glow.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/10 21:42:28


Post by: daedalus


 A Town Called Malus wrote:
 Kilkrazy wrote:
Gold? Pah!

My toothbrushes are platinum-iridium-uranium alloy.


The radiation really helps to give your smile that extra glow.


It helps, but the real trick is that Undark brand toothpaste.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/11 10:28:05


Post by: Kilkrazy


I don't brush my own teeth with them.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/11 15:53:04


Post by: sebster


 Easy E wrote:
My point is all thsi Doom and Gloom nihilism is a bit.... premature. All this Nihilism is not a great way to move society/civilization forward. After all, if it is all pointless anyway then why do anything?

Your comment in the other thread about the Children of Men applies in this thread just as much.


Fair point. And to make it clear, I don't think this is an inevitability by any means. I think it is a possibility, and one that should be discussed so that we adapt appropriately if it does happen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Iron_Captain wrote:
But rich people stuff is only rich people stuff because it is rare and valuable? What is the point of having a gold plated toothbrush if you can just have your robots churn out gold plated toothbrushes by the shipload? And if you only need a few gold plated toothbrushes, then why bother having expensive robots at all instead of the way cheaper process to just ask a goldsmith to make you a fully customised exclusive gold plated toothbrush?
When it comes to elite goods, mass production simply doesn't work. Mass produced goods can not be elite goods. And if you don't need mass production, you do not need robots. Elite goods are exclusive, and if exclusive is what you want humans will be able to do that more cheaply and effectively than robots.


You've gotten confused and ended up thinking all automated manufacturing is mass production. That's not true. 100 foot mega yachts involve extremely high levels of machine production, but they're not mass produced.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/12 18:17:04


Post by: AndrewGPaul


 Iron_Captain wrote:

But rich people stuff is only rich people stuff because it is rare and valuable?


No, it's because it's expensive; not always the same thing. For example, the $9,999 iPhone app that did nothing, but was a way to show that you were so rich that you could literally throw away ten large and not care about it.

Or having a £100,000 Maclaren. Utterly pointless - a Vauxhall Astra is likely to be more useful 99.9% of the time, but having an Astra parked outside your house doesn't advertise your wealth. Prior to that it was having a country estate, a London townhouse, etc.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/12 19:22:21


Post by: Kilkrazy


A lot of rich people are buying stuff in the UK as an emergency store of value.

f you're a Russian oligarch, or a Chinese army slave labour camp entrepreneur, you like in constant fear that Putin or Xi will take against you and rip all your money. So what you do is to buy a load of capital assets, flats, country estates, commercial premises, in stable liberal democracies with the rule of law, like the UK, and a Bermudan passport.

If and when the gak hits the fan, you skip out with your Bermudan passport, sell your flats and commercial estates, and set yourself up safe and wealthy.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/13 00:01:51


Post by: Mario


 Kilkrazy wrote:
A lot of rich people are buying stuff in the UK as an emergency store of value.

f you're a Russian oligarch, or a Chinese army slave labour camp entrepreneur, you like in constant fear that Putin or Xi will take against you and rip all your money. So what you do is to buy a load of capital assets, flats, country estates, commercial premises, in stable liberal democracies with the rule of law, like the UK, and a Bermudan passport.

If and when the gak hits the fan, you skip out with your Bermudan passport, sell your flats and commercial estates, and set yourself up safe and wealthy.
There are also freeports for that.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/13 20:44:28


Post by: Kilkrazy


Interesting article.

I myself hold several cases of fine wine "in bond" at the Berry Brothers and Rudd warehouse in Basingstoke. However, in a few years time I will import it and drink it.

I don't think I would like to live in a warehouse but the Russian Oligarch who owns half of Henley-on-Thames has a 300 acre riverside estate to live in when the gak hits the fan.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/15 14:35:11


Post by: Easy E


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/business/self-driving-trucks.html

Self-driving Trucks are closer than you think.

Can self-driving forklifts and pick/pack machines be that far out of the question?


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/15 18:32:06


Post by: kronk


 Easy E wrote:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/business/self-driving-trucks.html

Self-driving Trucks are closer than you think.

Can self-driving forklifts and pick/pack machines be that far out of the question?


Self-driving forklifts and pick/packs are already here. My company uses them and is expanding their use right now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Kilkrazy wrote:
I mean it's odd to expect the doctor who makes some of his money by selling you drugs to give you them for free.


Doctors don't sell you drugs. They diagnose and prescribe.

Pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS sell you drugs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Easy E wrote:
Well, since everyone seems to "see" this future of Oligarchy uber alles; what is one to do about it, eh?



Educate, educate, educate. Learn a trade, get a certification, or get a degree. We need engineers. We need plumbers. We need electricians. We need teachers. Nurses, doctors, auto-repair, finance, realtors, policemen, etc. None of those jobs go away.

The job your father had where he had a high school degree, stood in position A and put 12 bolts into slots D-O and was paid $30 an hour and retired at 55? Yeah, that jobs fething gone. It sucks. It's hard/impossible for some people to accept. But there it is.

It will be a time where if you don't have some sort of certification, trade-skill, or degree, your best job will be as a contract/temporary employee, pushing a broom or answering a phone.

I keep saying will be. That's wrong. The time we are all talking about is here. It just started.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/15 18:54:30


Post by: Easy E


Even answering a phone won't be a thing as AI and IVRs will do it better than temp/low-wage workers.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/15 19:06:49


Post by: kronk


 Easy E wrote:
Even answering a phone won't be a thing as AI and IVRs will do it better than temp/low-wage workers.


True that.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/16 15:29:55


Post by: Antario


If we look at the world economy on an aggregate level, the big issue is that the classes who spend money are cut off from the profits of capital, and those classes who do own the majority of capital, only spent a fraction of their income. Governments are incapable, or actively set against each other, to prevent redistribution. So we have an enormous amount of inactive savings and a lack of investment in true venture capital (and I don't mean built a better Iphone) and fundamental R&D. Of the creative destruction as Schumpeter described it, only the destruction part is now occurring. At the moment the only employees who benefit are the ones with job skills that are scarce (it's a common misconception that education level rather than scarcity determines worker income, although there is off course a correlation).

What needs to change? Globalization has allowed stockholders to lay claim on nearly all profits from companies. A rebalance of negotiating power between workers and (and particularly) employers on an international scale is the key, but how that will happen?

I can't predict the future. Maybe there will be (global) unions 2.0, increased government coordination to force corporations to pay their share of public investments, by the large economies under political pressure by their impoverishing middle classes, or maybe some thing more radical like activist hacker collectives that can credibly threaten to break multinationals. Who knows.


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/16 16:05:31


Post by: Easy E


 Antario wrote:
If we look at the world economy on an aggregate level, the big issue is that the classes who spend money are cut off from the profits of capital, and those classes who do own the majority of capital, only spent a fraction of their income. Governments are incapable, or actively set against each other, to prevent redistribution. So we have an enormous amount of inactive savings and a lack of investment in true venture capital (and I don't mean built a better Iphone) and fundamental R&D. Of the creative destruction as Schumpeter described it, only the destruction part is now occurring. At the moment the only employees who benefit are the ones with job skills that are scarce (it's a common misconception that education level rather than scarcity determines worker income, although there is off course a correlation).

What needs to change? Globalization has allowed stockholders to lay claim on nearly all profits from companies. A rebalance of negotiating power between workers and (and particularly) employers on an international scale is the key, but how that will happen?

I can't predict the future. Maybe there will be (global) unions 2.0, increased government coordination to force corporations to pay their share of public investments, by the large economies under political pressure by their impoverishing middle classes, or maybe some thing more radical like activist hacker collectives that can credibly threaten to break multinationals. Who knows.


Is it time for the Wobblies to make a comeback?


The New Economy?  @ 2017/11/17 00:58:59


Post by: Antario


 Easy E wrote:
 Antario wrote:
If we look at the world economy on an aggregate level, the big issue is that the classes who spend money are cut off from the profits of capital, and those classes who do own the majority of capital, only spent a fraction of their income. Governments are incapable, or actively set against each other, to prevent redistribution. So we have an enormous amount of inactive savings and a lack of investment in true venture capital (and I don't mean built a better Iphone) and fundamental R&D. Of the creative destruction as Schumpeter described it, only the destruction part is now occurring. At the moment the only employees who benefit are the ones with job skills that are scarce (it's a common misconception that education level rather than scarcity determines worker income, although there is off course a correlation).

What needs to change? Globalization has allowed stockholders to lay claim on nearly all profits from companies. A rebalance of negotiating power between workers and (and particularly) employers on an international scale is the key, but how that will happen?

I can't predict the future. Maybe there will be (global) unions 2.0, increased government coordination to force corporations to pay their share of public investments, by the large economies under political pressure by their impoverishing middle classes, or maybe some thing more radical like activist hacker collectives that can credibly threaten to break multinationals. Who knows.


Is it time for the Wobblies to make a comeback?


The general union idea is a possibility.