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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.

 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.

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.

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?

 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.

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

 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.

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.

 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?

 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.