Here's a positive view of the technology that's available TODAY. Use your creative juices for what could be negative for it. Your analogy isn't even close.
A universal basic income
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Here's a positive view of the technology that's available TODAY. Use your creative juices for what could be negative for it. Your analogy isn't even close.
How is "welfare" something that belongs to you in the first place Coop? Company "A" gets a tax 'credit' on it's tax bill. Only has to pay 'X' instead of 'Y' without the 'credit'. 'X is less than 'Y' with the "credit" Company A keeps what it's already earned. How is that "welfare"?
That's fine @TarHeelEer ...but who pays for and builds all of that? Computers need R&D...manufacturing, assembly, skilled maintenance, monitors, & programmers.
Those are humans, not robots. They'll be highly skilled, not general laborers or entry level fast food workers.
When you get more back than you had withheld (refundable tax credits), that is something that didn't belong to you (welfare). It seems you are now shifting to corporate tax credits. Why does Company A get a tax credit and not Company B? Don't get me wrong, I get to help make a living off this stupid ****.How is "welfare" something that belongs to you in the first place Coop? Company "A" gets a tax 'credit' on it's tax bill. Only has to pay 'X' instead of 'Y' without the 'credit'. 'X is less than 'Y' with the "credit" Company A keeps what it's already earned. How is that "welfare"?
End result, less people are going to be making paychecks, at least until new industries/jobs are built up. This won't be going from analog to digital. It's wholesale re-purposing of the entire supply chain. Our tax system and welfare system isn't ready today. The way Congress is, I doubt if it ever would be. I don't know the answer, all I know, going to do my best to stay employed, and that means making others unnecessary.
No one is saying that we will go from a workforce of 60 mil down to a workforce of 1 million. Is a 10% drop possible? Maybe. What affect will that have on the travel businesses? Service industry? Etc, etc, etc
Those computers controlling that are low end $30 on site connected to cloud (cheap). The cameras are what are already in place, of course there will be more, but they're not expensive. Noone needed to monitor, maintenance is nothing compared to jobs killed, and programmers, we're already here.
I think if you're talking about an earned income credit (money you qualify for simply because of an arbitrary figure you earned) Yes that is Welfare. You didn't earn the money you're ostensibly being "refunded"...it was just confiscated from someone else who did earn it and given to you.
In the cases of so called corporate Welfare, if it simply lowers their tax bill on earnings they've already produced that is NOT Welfare. The money belongs to them. A subsidy (straight cash payment) is Welfare. I oppose both. Subsidies and high taxation on corporate earnings.
Know what we'll always need? Waste handlers. Ain't no robot gonna clean up our messes. You still have to wipe your own ***, and take out your own trash, and someone has to pick it up and dispose of it all. Humans, not robots.
I can't get uneducated Leftists to do it....not yet. Maybe Trump can help? Seems to be doing a pretty good job on 'em right now.
We should have started addressing this a long time ago. Those manufacturing jobs that people want to bring back to the US? Those are jobs for robots. You'll need maintenance folks and quality control folks, but you aren't going to see jobs with some person running a press for an 8-hour shift.
One way to combat this is education. I'm not talking about Sociology degrees from some expensive liberal arts college either. You need to give people the ability to get training to work in that new environment. You can do that several ways - tax breaks for individuals paying for their own education is one way. I think we need to incentivize apprenticeships for companies too. If they can get a break on taxes while hiring the next generation of folks to work on their systems, you create additional jobs while people are being trained to work in the new economy.
As an aside, I've heard Mike Rowe speak a number of times about the lack of skilled labor in the marketplace. I've heard him complain about that for at least a few years now. I'm sure some of it is that there is a shortage of folks who want to do those jobs. I think an apprenticeship program offered by some of the companies seeking skilled laborers would have filled a significant part of that void if they would have started them when they recognized the problem.
Some are saying that new tech makes old jobs obsolete but also creates news jobs, just like in the past, but the thing is that many think that the tech his getting so good that they'll kill lots more jobs than they'll create. Literally millions of people drive for a living and we're approaching the time when machines can do it instead. That will create some jobs, as in programming the cars, etc, but not as many as now.
Another one is cooking. Robots can cook now. Really. Remember how not long ago some said "$15 minimum wage for fast food restaurants" and others responded "Yeah, well then just automate the ordering part and eliminate those jobs?" Well not only can they (and they are) eliminate the counter jobs but eventually they'll eliminate the cooking jobs too. And the number of people it takes to create and program the cooking robots won't be as large as the number of jobs lost.
I don't think these upcoming changes are like those in the past.
Another one is cooking. Robots can cook now. Really. Remember how not long ago some said "$15 minimum wage for fast food restaurants" and others responded "Yeah, well then just automate the ordering part and eliminate those jobs?" Well not only can they (and they are) eliminate the counter jobs but eventually they'll eliminate the cooking jobs too. And the number of people it takes to create and program the cooking robots won't be as large as the number of jobs lost.
I don't think these upcoming changes are like those in the past.
I can see that. But 10 years ago server farms and cloud management specialists were rare if even existent. Now they're in heavy demand. Ditto for software engineers that manage internet traffic flow, IP systems integrations, and peer-to-peer co-location services. A dynamic economy always evolves into "what's next"?
Computerization has led to miniaturization of processors, which has led to more engineering design, which has created more software programmers, which has led to more source code writers and intellectual property development. It happens. 50 years ago those skills weren't in demand. We just needed pipe fitters and welders. Now we don't have enough of either!
We'll be fine. Robots won't replace humans, they'll just do some of the work humans either don't want to do now, can't do as efficiently, or that which can be done by them cheaper or faster....freeing us to do other things they cannot...like wiping our asses or designing our next amusements for personal entertainment with all of the free time they'll be creating for us.[winking]
I saw a story on that the other day. Total automated ordering. But someone will still have to stock the frozen burgers that come in off the trucks, count them, load them, and keep an eye on the robots if they run out of buns. (someone will have to know where the back stock is and go get it.)
But if we don't want to pay some slug 15.00 and hour to make a Chicken sandwich, the robots will do it so we can still get one for a buck!
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Someone has to do all that stuff now except for the part about keeping an eye on the robot. The number of jobs keeping an eye on the robot isn't going to be as large as the number of jobs taken over by the robots. This isn't just some guys on a message board saying this, do some research and see how many smart, informed people are saying this. Bill Gates and Elon Musk aren't saying it just for fun.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/17/elon-musk-robots-will-be-able-to-do-everything-better-than-us.html
Isn't that why we use computers? Drive cars? Use automation? To be more productive?
Yep. Be very afraid when the robots are designing the robots that build the robots.
Eventually, yes, but even before then if the number of people that build the robots is less than the number of jobs the robots take over then there's a net loss.
People dont realize how much money they can make welding. Its just one example but on pipelines there are a half dozen welders working 10-12 hours a day 9 days every 2 weeks and getting paud 60 bucks an hour. There are jobs available and nobody to fill them.
We don't use those things to make us more productive but because they are overall more productive. So while a human using a car is more productive than a human using a horse, an automated car is more productive than a human using a car.
ETA: I'm talking net production. An automated car may do the same thing as a human using a car but if you don't have to pay a human then the automated car is more productive even though it's doing the same thing.
Plumbers too! I had a plumber in here the other day working on my damaged sump pump. Guy was here a little over an hour, charged me 350.00 in labor! Installed a 100.00 part. I thought to myself, "I gotta look into this gig"!
From what I read we have a shortage of jobs that Mike Rowe pushes and yet we have a cajillion people in college majoring in things like Feminist Dance Theory. (I took that from Christina Hoff Somers.) Yet some politicians talk about having free college for all. Really? If the government is going to pay for someones schooling how about it be someone that does something useful when they're finished with school?
As time passes more and more of that stuff is automated. Already it's mostly robots that build cars.
Hey, wonder why the coal mining industry isn't thriving in WV anymore, maybe it's partly because they get machines to mine the coal now instead of people.
So we don't fly planes with cargo to be more productive getting goods and services to market? We don't have conveyor belts at Fed-Ex to help us move more packages overnight? We don't use computers to manage money and information more efficiently and accurately? We're not more productive using our machines to do what we need to get done?
OK...I'm going to cut my grass this afternoon, guess I can use a pair of hand held hedge shears as efficiently as my lawn mower?
So we don't fly planes with cargo to be more productive getting goods and services to market? We don't have conveyor belts at Fed-Ex to help us move more packages overnight? We don't use computers to manage money and information more efficiently and accurately? We're not more productive using our machines to do what we need to get done?
OK...I'm going to cut my grass this afternoon, guess I can use a pair of hand held hedge shears as efficiently as my lawn mower?
You misread what I wrote. I'm not responsible for you misreading.
Seems to be a new "theme" emerging among the Left...essentially guaranteeing everyone regardless of their ability or talent a basic income I'd suppose paid for by the Government even if a person can't work
What would this do to wages, hiring, prices, labor, consumer costs, the deficit? Who pays? What about those with more earning capability, less? Democrats are serious about this as many of them are starting to promote it in their campaigns along with free healthcare, housing subsidies, food subsidies, and free College educations. Good idea?
Any of you Leftists care to explain how this all will work and be enthusiastically embraced by American voters? Any Leftists here defending this economic sophistry?
What would be the incentive to work, if you could make a living wage off the government? This is why Socialism fails. As the old saying goes...You eventually run out of other people's money.
Socialism will always fail and when it fails, there is no repairing it.
I'll never understand why some people will take government dependency over freedom.
