What To Do About The Long-Term Implications of Automation

Statistically, it's probably accurate. I'll go ahead and take the unlikelihood that I'm wrong about you having a standard job like the vast majority of the population, because what I have to say is still true for the vast majority.

Just try to imagine how many potential geniuses died in cotton fields or scrubbing floors or something. Human potential is higher than we're realizing.

 

Let me know when they're testing robots to see which ones can do farm work the best. It will be a revolution.

But will farms need automation insurance to protect their assets from sabotage by roving bands of illegal immigrants???

 

Automation, by putting actual AI into a robot body, is far to dangerous. In the future we won't have robots doing all the labor. Instead we'll have wage slaves working the menial jobs and an elite upper class that will live an extravagant lifestyle like France before the French revolution.

 

Well no since the bottom bracket stayed the same. And then of course there eas the change in the estate tax, and the pass through income change, and the faiure to keep Trump's promise to eliminate carried interest, and of course the corporate tax change which really only benefits stockholders. So all in all the vast majority of the benefits went to the wealthy. And of course next will be more cuts to SS, Medicare and Medicaid necessary to compensate for the defecit increase but that probably won't start for a year or two.

 

Considering the about forty year trend of more and more wealth being concentrated at the top and the fact that the rate of concentration is increasing my guess is you are overly optimistic. The rich are gradually controlling all the news media the forms of entertainment and the government and of course now the rich will control internet access. Hard to see how change is going to happen.

 

The bottom bracket does not pay federal income tax so tjey are not entitled to a tax cut

As for your other complaints no one in real life ever gets 100% of what they want

 

Since the bottom bracket did not go down at all clearly your statement about all of the brackets going down more than the top bracked was incorrect.

And please provide evidence thst no taxpayer in the bottom bracket ever pays taxes. Perhaps you don't actually understand how income taxes are calculated.

 

I guess you got me there

The people paying no taxes did not get a tax break

Thanks for the correction

 

So you really do not understand how income tax is calculated. Hint: the bracket you are in is based on your actual taxable income not on your income before deductions. Here this might actually help

https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/01/16/the-most-common-tax-bracket-in-america.aspx

So to put it simply about 27 million americans are actually paying a tax of ten percent on their taxable income. The people in the zero bracket are the ones who pay no income taxes which is about 37 million.

 

I understand thet the bothom 10% are tax mooches instead of tax payers

 

Study...yes...the past 30 years in which technology does exist to replace lots more workers than have been replaced to date, so yes I don't see any doom and gloom with waitresses during the next few decades. Will automation continue to expand...absolutely and probably due to labor costs/issues, quality, performance, and technological requirements. I'm going to 'guess' that if business was polled and asked what their biggest challenges are in running their business that among the top will be labor issues. When labor issues reach a certain level of concern, companies must seek out sourcing and robotics and automation, etc. where applicable. Regarding waiting...anyone who gives a little thought to technology and innovation and business costs/issues can guess how secure their jobs might be...workers have known in the past and they know today what's going on so what's missing is people taking proactive actions to learn new skills and/or obtain additional education...

 

ethical free market capitalists like our President do not automate when they're no buyers for what machines will sell.

they make use of all human capital instead of eliminating what they don't need without care for an adequate safety net.

their vision is busy work for demand to their supply, instead of generous welfare. it may be 'obsolete' busy work, but it is what the people have consented too from the last election.

 

I've said many times that I agree with creating a far improved vocational track for those graduating high school - and before. Clinton campaigned on that. Besides the immediate value to those entering our work force, it is a necessary part of a career, as our economy is moving fast enough that workers must keep up in order to advance and/or deal with the possibilty that their current job evaporates. We learned that in our last election cycle - auto workers and others who have been part of shrinking sectors are in good shape only if they have kept up with changing times.


However, vocational education is not going to have a significant effect on international competition, at least from the USA. We no longer have an advantage in manufacturing. Other countries can do that as well as we can. And, while we need all sorts of vocations, that's not what is going to cause the USA to have a world leading standard of living. It's not what is going to support our military. It's not what is going to keep us in a world leadership position.

You in Australia fact the same thing. If you don't compete in high tech, information, innovation, clean energy, automation, etc., China is going to eat your lunch. And, China will eat OUR lunch, too, if we decide to stand down. China holds more patents in clean energy than any other country. China has the fastest super computers, designed and manufactured in China. China is filing far more patents than the USA, due to their investment in research and education. China exports more clean energy technology than any other country.

You (and we) are going to be road kill if we choose to pay so little attention to colleges and universities.



The major point here is that education is FAR more than a product to be purchased. It is what our nations depend on for a future. It's what we must invest in if we want to invest in our future. It's the foundation of the emerging competitiion. The raw material of the emerging economy is brains - just like it used to be iron ore, or whatever. And, the USA has 5% of that resource while Australia has less than 0.5%. Neither of us can afford to waste brains - we don't have NEARLY enough brains for that.

We can't afford to sit by and watch to see if the kids with rich parents are going to support us.


Even if you just don't want to believe that our success in the emerging economy is dependent on brains, one can take a more near term pragmatic point of view.

In the US, those who get a 4 year college degree earn on average $1M more in their careers than do those who don't get a 4 year college degree. Plus, those without degrees include those who we end up supporting with welfare. The difference between those two outcomes is gigantic. We can NOT afford to have people falling into the bracket of those who can't support themselves (made better through college or vocational tracks), and we HAVE TO HAVE those in the bracket of those who make our nations competitive, because that's what leads to security, higher standard of living, greater international influence, etc.

 

Nonsense. Free market capitalists maximize profit. If profit maximization means not hiring humans, then they won't hire humans.

More absolute nonsense. And, we just had a demonstration of how monumentally wrong you are.

After the Bush recession, manufacturing production recovered within a year and has grown ever since.

However, manufacturing employment has STILL not recovered.

Manufacturing corporations achieved that by NOT hiring people unless they absolutely had to. And, they didn't give a CRAP about hiring back those they had fired due to the recession. What they did was maximize profits.

No, their vision is free market capitalism. They maximize profits. They certainly do NOT think of themselves as replacing welfare, nor have they ever.

Yes, workers consented to jobs for which they were dramatically overqualified and compensated miserably. Again, that is free market economics.

Beyond that, when there is an oversupply of labor, prices for labor don't go up. That's what we've seen. happen.

This is one reason that education is important. It moves someone into a market where there is greater demand and less supply. But, as per above, that's only one of the several major reasons education is important.

 

Capitalism is just the framework in which you may work out the economics of optimizing your path as others optimize their paths.

Capitalism does not doubt your opinions of what you see as best for you. Working for someone doesn't mean they know what's best for you, and it doesn't mean they control your path - other than in the context of what they have to offer.

 

school generally cripples the poor further, its generally a stepping stone for the rich. free education won't work for Americans if minimum wage pays rent, and the school is government charity by rich people who don't go there.

poor people are generally ignorant and incapable of book learning, you have to give them a good paying job or generous welfare to make up for generations of systemic injustices.

education may work if generous welfare serves as a crutch, but that is not possible in our democracy or bernie sanders would be President now.

grades are fake news in broken schools that run on free stuff.

 

when money is given to good rich people like our President from tax cuts, they give it back to the poor who are uneducated and who don't have privilege with a good paying job.

education is a trick for the privileged to get ahead over the underprivileged.

the market does not need to reach its potential, the people do need to reach their potential.

 

Not working for a boss isn't a realistic option for most people. The commons have been swallowed up already.

 

The Arab Spring happened because of the internet. And yes, there was a concentration of wealth at the top and control of the media too in those nations. Control/throttling of the internet is a lot harder than it looks. I have a thread on the topic as to how people will resist that control and find ways to subvert it.

 

Everyone who works pays federal taxes, period. No one is exempt from federal payroll taxes on their income regardless of how little they might earn.

 

That would be the top 1% like your BLOTUS who doesn't pay any taxes at all.

 

Awesome post!

That is the best summation of the fallacy of "compassionate conservatism" that I have ever read.