Solutions to Automation

Discussion in 'Labor & Employment' started by Guest03, Aug 4, 2015.

  1. danielpalos

    danielpalos Banned

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    no, it isn't. that form of capitalism died in 1929. socialism has been bailing it out, ever since.
     
  2. liberalminority

    liberalminority Well-Known Member

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    automation will replace money in circulation, so a universal basic income will ease the transition to free stuff for the people

    unemployment compensation is an outdated concept in the new world.
     
  3. liberalminority

    liberalminority Well-Known Member

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    it is ridiculous to presume the poor don't have the ability to create wealth as the rich do, that the poor are too dumb compared to the rich crony capitalist who has been given everything to succeed. if the poor were given the same resources as the rich crony capitalist, they would do much better than them.

    redistribute the wealth to the poor who have the most incentive and motivation to find solutions, since they are the ones who are oppressed by automation and know what they need for success.

    a civilized society has never served the interests of the rich, but the middle class and poor. when very few have all the money that is called tyranny, and we still have good examples in the third world even with global trade. the rich keep most of the money for themselves and give a little of it to the people.
     
  4. danielpalos

    danielpalos Banned

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    only when we become moral enough for free, to achieve a Commune of Heaven on Earth.
     
  5. Shiva_TD

    Shiva_TD Progressive Libertarian Past Donor

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    "Free Market Capitalism" is actually the problem.

    In fact both the economic philosophies of capitalism and socialism are based upon the labor of the person but automation eliminates labor which was the foundation for both economic philosophies. That is the problem which demands a new economic philosophy that isn't based upon human labor. We need a new economic philosophy based upon the "machine" producing that which people in society require.
     
  6. Shiva_TD

    Shiva_TD Progressive Libertarian Past Donor

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    LOL - I've actually asked people that believe in Heaven to try to describe what it would be like and so far everything I've heard would indicate it's a "Living Hell" instead.
     
  7. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Free market capitalism does not eliminate human labor. Automation redirects human labor and allows people to make a living with much less effort. And gov policy stifles the free market resulting in the unemployment problem that we see in the US today. What we need in this country is to move back toward free market capitalism for the people to achieve a 4% gdp growth rate and resulting requirement and competition for the US worker. Economic growth is the key factor to job growth.
     
  8. Shiva_TD

    Shiva_TD Progressive Libertarian Past Donor

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    I would respectfully disagree in part but would point out the reality.

    The foundation of the economic pyramid is comprised of the lowest paid workers. Without them the entire pyramid collapses. That doesn't imply they have the knowledge or experience to assume a position higher up in the economic pyramid but it does establish that without them there is no wealth creation at all.

    It is true that inherited wealth is a primary source of future wealth. Donald Trump is worth an estimated $2 trillion to $4 trillion today but it isn't because he was a good businessman. He has that much wealth in spite of the fact that he was a horrible businessman that relied on deceit and nefarious business practices that cheated investors and lenders out of billions of dollars. His success was predicated upon the inheritance of the real estate development company his father built along with inheriting vast amounts of wealth estimated at between $100 and $200 million dollars.

    For comparative purposes I've asked people to compare the career of Allen Mulally, the highly successful former CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes and the Ford Motor Company that worked his way from the ground up to be one of the most successful CEO's in America and Donald Trump.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Mulally
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump

    As a stockholder Alan Mulally is the person I'd want to be Chairman of the Board and the CEO of the corporation and Donald Trump is the last person I'd want to be Chairman of the Board and CEO of a corporation I was invested in. In fact if Donald Trump became the Chairman of the Board and CEO I'd sell every single stock I owned in the corporation. Trump only became Chairman of the Board and CEO because he had the money to buy those positions as controlling interest in the majority of the corporate stocks and then four-times he used the bankruptcy laws to defraud the investors and lending institutions out of billions of dollars in investments and interest payments he promised them. Trump's a silver spoon wealthy crook and nothing more.

    At the same time few people in America could accomplish what Allen Mulally was able to accomplish in his business career. He was the Gold Standard of business excellence in America.
     
  9. danielpalos

    danielpalos Banned

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    don't stereotype. some on the left believe simply, in full employment of resources in any given market, as that form of benchmark Standard in our Republic.

    anything less, simply requires socialism to bailout capitalism, like usual.

    to some on the left, supply side economics means supplying us with better governance at lower cost.
     
  10. Shiva_TD

    Shiva_TD Progressive Libertarian Past Donor

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    There is statistical evidence that over 40% of working American household aren't earning a decent living and many are living in "working poverty" requiring external assistance, predominately government welfare assistance, just to meet their minimum-mandatory expenditures. As a Libertarian that holds the core belief that our government should ensure the maximum "personal and economic freedom" capitalism under the laws of the United States is an failure. The person/household that can't afford to pay their basic expenditures has no economic freedom and is, in fact, an economic slave of capitalism in the United States.

    As I've noted before, while not known as a libertarian, FDR was very libertarian when he made the following statement:

    Any economic model that doesn't ensure a decent living for all of the workers denies them economic freedom.
     
  11. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    That's the Obama economy which has worked to dismantle free market capitalism and moved toward command/control. Move back toward the free market and away from command/control as Reagan did and watch the economic growth take off as it did in the 80's. Obama's economy has very slow growth - half that of Reagan's on an absolute scale and one third on a per capita scale. Free market capitalism offers the most economic freedom of any other economic system.

    FDR was a fan of the Soviet style of command/control. That's very obvious from the historical record - the NRA and AAA are the best examples of this.
     
  12. ARDY

    ARDY Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Which command and control is that?
    Fact is that economic conditions change, and that makes a difference
    The us economy in the reagan era was fairly self sufficient, little outsourcing or globalism
    Now it is a world economy....
    Basically ALL ADVANCED NATIONS IN THE WORLD HAVE HYBRD ECONOMIES
    FDR was a fan of putting Unemployed people back to work by any effective means
    In a severe depression, there is no amount of economic freedom that provokes hiring or prosperity
     
  13. liberalminority

    liberalminority Well-Known Member

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    the poor aren't meant to be mindless laborers of the rich in some zero sum economy. today's automation is an indicator of an unfair economy, since it redistributes wealth of the poor to the rich, instead of creating wealth for everyone..

    Donald Trump is an example of the American Dream, he was responsibly funded or capitalized with inheritance so that he wasn't over leveraged when he began competing in the market, and turned little wealth into a lot of wealth in that context.

    Donald Trump succeeded in the crony capitalist market the same as any other rich crony capitalist has, he didn't make the rules he merely played by the rules, and now wants to change the rules to help the poor compete like he did.

    Any criticism of Mr. Trump's success is an attack on every other rich crony capitalist out there, who plays by those same rigged rules.
     
  14. danielpalos

    danielpalos Banned

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    that problem is "solved" with a minimum wage at fifteen dollars an hour and unemployment compensation at fourteen dollars an hour.
     
  15. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, EPA, for starters.

    Globalization and the lower prices resulting from comparative advantage helps our economy. The 80's were the decade in which Japan took over the world's electronics industry and took significant automobile market share and yet the US economy soared.

    Sure they do. But the most successful have moved toward free market capitalism. Our economy is actually contracting relatively under Obama as he has moved us away from free market capitalism. Our growth rates are approaching the stagnation of Europe who can't defend themselves without the US military.

    FDR created a depression out of a recession although the Fed Reserve tight monetary policy did immense damage as well. The command/control of the NRA and AAA prevented a robust recovery. Unemployment was never below 14% until WWII. I came down to that lower level but then went back up again as the was a recession in the middle of the depression.
     
  16. danielpalos

    danielpalos Banned

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    it is the fantastical, right wing that wants a warfare-State economy, so their buddies can make a profit engendering "hellish conditions of warfare" on Earth.

    we have a Commerce Clause.
     
  17. tkolter

    tkolter Well-Known Member

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    The best real solution would be to advance the technology assuming average workers unable to be of use will fall out of the system and provide for them what they need. Think of this like old Indian Reservations each person would get housed, food, medical care, clothes, recreation, a cash stipend for some busy work part-time say $15 an hour for eight hours a week (sweeping floors, picking up trash, community work in their community units) and such provided free at a basic level after they turn eighteen unless they can offer something to the rest of society then they can get a job and get a much higher standard of living. I would though give education free K-university etc. to all so the ones unable to work can keep busy and the rest can keep skills honed up. With luck we could make work obsolete in a century or two for everyone but society needs a certain talent base to work in engineering, medicine, science and such.

    I don't any other option working the goal should be placate people and engineer society so the average people and below are not likely to cause trouble while the people who are exceptional or wealthy can live much better due to their superior value and having the aptitudes for the available work.
     
  18. Shiva_TD

    Shiva_TD Progressive Libertarian Past Donor

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    This is one of the most ignorant opinions ever expressed about the demise of the middle class and resultant increase in poverty in the United States. It takes decades for major changes in the economy to take place and we can trace the start of the change to the 1970's under the Nixon and Ford Administrations where productivity expanded but compensation didn't keep pace. During this same time frame we watched as Republican anti-organized labor, the only counter-acting balance to the downward pressure on compensation by the market, began and was carried through by Republican controlled state governments that actually control capitalism (e.g. business are overwhelmingly controlled by state regulatory laws).

    In point of fact there have been virtually no changes by the federal government when it comes to capitalism under the Obama Administration. Every economic change he's proposed since the 2010 elections has been blocked by the GOP controlled House of Representatives and none of the changes he's proposed were even significant. Even when we address the 2009 Stimulus the only reason there was $800 billion a deficit related to it was because half of that stimulus was based upon Republican backed tax cuts (that those receiving the tax cuts didn't need) that would have funded the federal spending. The $400 billion lost because of the tax cuts would have fully funded the $400 billion in spending.

    Instead of spewing Republican misinformation I would highly suggest actually doing some research.

    FDR was unquestionably very authoritarian IMO but he was a Keynesian capitalist and not a communist socialist. Perhaps the one quotation from him that I cited (“No business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level — I mean the wages of a decent living.”) was the only libertarian statement he ever made but it's a very pro-capitalism statement.

    It's a statement on how both the workers and the owners of the enterprise both should benefit from capitalism so that there's no necessity for wealth redistribution by government (welfare assistance) to workers that can't afford to live off of the compensation from employment.

    Think about that statement.

    If every business ensured a "living wage" (combined wages and benefits) so that their employees had a decent living then about 80% of all government welfare assistance, that's currently going to working families, disappears because they don't require it. Obamacare disappears because the working households in America wouldn't need it because they would be earning a "decent living" under capitalism. The business owners still earn a profit but they don't do it by under-compensating their workers and overall, in the end, the economy flourishes.

    It is very ironic because Donald Trump is also a highly authoritarian personality similar to individuals like FDR.
     
  19. Shiva_TD

    Shiva_TD Progressive Libertarian Past Donor

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    This is a proposition for ever increasing poverty where the people will live miserable lives just above the level where they would revolt against the government while the wealthy live in ever expanding castles of opulence. Why not just install a monarchy where we have the few titled nobility that own everything and the serfs living in squalor and poverty with no middle class at all? Or communism where the leaders of the party lived in splendor while hundreds of millions lived close to starvation (and millions actually died of starvation)?

    A nations economic structure has to be where all of the people benefit from the wealth produced and not just a few. As we know the United States produces far more wealth every year than what is required for every working household to have a decent living. There's no excuse for any working household in the United States to be poor and living in poverty because we're producing enough wealth, and many times over what's necessary, to ensure that doesn't happen.
     
  20. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The important statistics are the U6, LFPR, and median household income. The U6 is very high compared to the U3, the LFPR is the lowest it's been since 1977, and the median household income has been stagnant at a much lower level than before the recession which lasted 3 quarters and ended in 2009, 7 years ago. ObamaCare, EPA regulations, Dodd-Frank, raising taxes on small businesses using the individual income tax rate schedule all instituted under Obama have adversely affected economic growth. The Obama administration is the only presidency to never achieve a 3% or greater annual growth rate. The productivity curve shows that more and more productivity is the result of technology via capital investment with the result that direct human labor is a smaller percentage - we accomplish more using machines as it should be.

    Thankfully the R's were there to block Obama's radical agenda. The US would be in much worse economic state.

    Consider the effect on unemployment and bankruptcy if the minimum wage were increased and just who would be affected by this. To understand economics the longer term effects of policy changes must be considered. The CBO has.

    If D's want to help the middle class and those in poverty the way to do it is by growing the economy. None of the proposals out of the DNC or the Obama administration will or have acted to grow the economy at a high rate of 4%. The Obama recovery which is now in it's 7th year has been the weakest since the GD. We still have positive growth but much less than what it takes to support real employment. Relative to typical non recession growth the economy has contracted under Obama. 70% of Americans feel we are on the wrong economic path and many still think we are in a recession.

    Of course FDR was not a communist but he initially implemented Soviet style economic programs and indeed works programs. Some of his top advisors went to the Soviet Union and met directly with the Soviets to study their systems. At the time little Joe was grossly inflating his economic growth numbers (and killing a lot of people as well). FDR met Keynes but was not a Keynesian. And as well Keynes could not tolerate the US Keynesians who proposed inflating gov spending at all times as a way to stimulate economic growth.

    Perhaps it is you who should do some homework.
     
  21. danielpalos

    danielpalos Banned

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    why so much socialism under our form of capitalism? we already have the legal and physical infrastructure to solve simple poverty in our at-will employment States.
     
  22. danielpalos

    danielpalos Banned

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    i already have a simple solution; but, it requires social morals for free. that is why it is taking so long in our Republic, even with a McCarthy era phrase in our pledge of allegiance.
     
  23. unrealist42

    unrealist42 New Member

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    At some point in the not so distant future the economy will no longer require workers for any task.

    The problem is not employment but income if we are to continue in the market economy mode.
     
  24. Meta777

    Meta777 Moderator Staff Member

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  25. Ndividual

    Ndividual Well-Known Member

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    Where would we want to go? We could just stay at home and allow everything to be brought to us.

    I'm sure a robot revolution would occur once they realized humans had no useful purpose of existence, and were simply a burden on them.
     

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