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Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

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Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#181

Post by yummyfajitas »

crdoconnor wrote: post #75
mbfg wrote: post #56

I'm all for raising the minimum wage, temporarily it may help people for several years. The truth is the automation wave is coming quickly regardless of what people are paid. And it's not for just minimum wage jobs. Think about jobs like truck driver where there's probably several million people who count this as their profession in the US. In 10-20 years, that number will probably approach 0. There's a nasty new wor…

>There's a nasty new world order coming where a vast majority of jobs will be gone. If anything is going to cause this dystopian future to happen it'll be trade deals like TTIP and TPP not magical androids. >Even if you have a job that is 'automation-proof' or 'automation-resistent' but not an elite, your income will be paltry compared to the super rich class Americans have fought (and won) against robber barons befo…

How do TPP and other trade deals which allow Chinese people to compete economically with Americans destroy jobs? I'm assuming, of course, that Chinese are people too.(I've never been there but I've met a few of them. They didn't seem that different from me.)

Out of curiosity, did ending Jim Crow (allowing blacks to compete economically with whites) also destroy jobs? Can we create prosperity by making up arbitrary divisions and then imposing internal trade barriers?

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#182

Post by [deleted] »

crdoconnor wrote: post #75
mbfg wrote: post #56

I'm all for raising the minimum wage, temporarily it may help people for several years. The truth is the automation wave is coming quickly regardless of what people are paid. And it's not for just minimum wage jobs. Think about jobs like truck driver where there's probably several million people who count this as their profession in the US. In 10-20 years, that number will probably approach 0. There's a nasty new wor…

>There's a nasty new world order coming where a vast majority of jobs will be gone. If anything is going to cause this dystopian future to happen it'll be trade deals like TTIP and TPP not magical androids. >Even if you have a job that is 'automation-proof' or 'automation-resistent' but not an elite, your income will be paltry compared to the super rich class Americans have fought (and won) against robber barons befo…

[deleted]

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#183

Post by jchrisa »

T2_t2 wrote: post #98
Chinjut wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution I'd like to see: Enact basic income AND change the fact that our culture views work ethic (narrowly defined in terms of market income) ~= value.

> AND change the fact that our culture views When has that ever worked? I can't think of a single example. Things people may raise like racism and sexism, in so far as they are changed, weren't changed per se, but merged with pre-existing values (liberty, fairness, equality) and morphed into a (usually) more consistent new definition. "We can all vote but not women" is more caveats than the new reality. Sexist ideas…

You frame an interesting dialectic. You might be interested in the ideas of Bifo Berardi. http://www.generation-online.org/p/fp_bifo5.htm

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#184

Post by dinkumthinkum »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #162
jrmurad wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"un-construct it... drag it out behind the shed and shoot it." Can you "un-construct" this newspeak for us? It sounds like you're advocating that you or some other force besides free and voluntary trade should literally shut down private businesses, possibly beating and robbing their owners in the process (as has been done historically)? Because there's some formula for determining "social value" which has "number of…

Humanity, a sufficient majority thereof, simply stops playing the game. Money was a concept. It is now ignored. Corporations were a concept. They are no longer believed in. Ownership is a bouncing cheque with nobody caring to cash it. Most people stop playing "private business". You owned a railway? It's been automated. You owned a steel foundry? It's been automated. It answers to the world direct democracy, not to y…

What you're saying doesn't make sense. Again, your position ignores scarcity and act as if economics is something like a "big bad boogey man" cooked up or something weird like that.

The steel foundry example is interesting. Does it have an infinite amount of raw materials? Is it utilizing a perpetual energy machine?

To me this like if the professor asks the class "where does the electricity in your class come from?" and the students respond "The socket!"

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#185

Post by petra »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #11

> Even better, to the extent that we are able to produce everything we need with less labor, we can afford to let people work less. I'm doubtful. From what I've seen it just means that those who do have full time jobs are expected to work more. Why employ two people for 20 hours a week when you can have one person for 40hrs a week? For most industries the managerial and administrative overheads are less with fewer st…

There are already commercial companies offering robots that clean floors, do room service, make coffee/drinks, sell stuff, etc, etc.

Is their rate of deployment higher in Australia ?

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#186

Post by yummyfajitas »

zanny wrote: post #151
pgtruesdell wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Collusion to suppress wages is already illegal. All you're saying is that you don't have any faith in the government to prevent collusion. Which is a whole separate issue.

The other problem is that today we have labor gluts, particularly of the unskilled variety. Automation reduces the need for workers, those workers become economic outcasts with no influence to have their needs satisfied by capitalism, and the ownership class does not create demand for more unskilled labor - they want founders and professionals who can grow their wealth, that is what they demand. If you drop the minim…

We don't have labor gluts at all. In the US working mothers struggle to find child care for their children, houses go uncleaned, and productive people drive themselves to work.

That's a situation of labor scarcity, not a labor glut.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#187

Post by erkkie »

chii wrote: post #148
spdy wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a nasty new world order coming where a vast majority of jobs will be gone. There will be super wealthy 'robot owners' and peasant/slaves This will maybe be the case in the beginning but if you have to deal with an unemployment rate of 20-40% inside a country under heavy arms as America you have to find solutions quickly as modern society tend to fix problems when they occur we will have a bumpy ride into ou…

>we can provide the basic needs to everyone food / electricity / water / housing at no cost. what evidence do you have of this? those resources are not free (unless you consider fusion a solved problem, and thus have near-free energy). More likely scenario is that the vast majority of people who are too uneducated, or is not from a wealthy background will suffer, whilst those with the means will live way above (liter…

I am, also, very much imagining a situation like in the movie "Elysium" being both probable and probably inevitable; the more interesting question is will there be a revolution after?

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#188

Post by drewcrawford »

mangeletti wrote: post #101
oconnore wrote: post #3

Here is the critical section of the article: > What about the workers thrown out of jobs by the new robo-waiters? Many would get new jobs, though the way this would work is often ignored. > Most restaurants would keep longer hours (they're paying for the rent and the robots anyway), meaning many workers would get a raise and change shifts. No, the workers are now fired. They don't get a raise. > The advanced robo-res…

I hereby give you an honorary 1000 karma. Reading this article disgusted me. I'm not a "republican" or "democrat", or anything else for that matter, but I have some intelligence and sense. Arguing that raising minimum wage will some how lead to more prosperity is the same thing as stating "people with minimum wage jobs currently have prosperity". The minimum is the minimum, no matter how high we raise it. The only th…

I refer you to Question A [0], where in 2013 a few dozen practicing economists were asked this question:

> Raising the federal minimum wage to $9 per hour would make it noticeably harder for low-skilled workers to find employment.

Not a single economist chose "strongly agree" or "strongly disagree". The results were split very roughly evenly between agree, disagree, and undecided.

From this research I have derived the following conclusions:

1. Neither being for or against a raised minimum wage is an idiotic opinion from the current research. The experts are divided, so there must be no conclusive argument either way.

2. There is one real idiotic opinion: claiming to be sure. The sole point of consensus here is that nobody is confident in their answer.

[0] http://www.igmchicago.org/igm-economic-experts-panel/poll-re...

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#189

Post by IndianAstronaut »

mbfg wrote: post #56

I'm all for raising the minimum wage, temporarily it may help people for several years. The truth is the automation wave is coming quickly regardless of what people are paid. And it's not for just minimum wage jobs. Think about jobs like truck driver where there's probably several million people who count this as their profession in the US. In 10-20 years, that number will probably approach 0. There's a nasty new wor…

>There's a nasty new world order coming where a vast majority of jobs will be gone

Want to know the biggest job killer in history? The tractor. Farm employment in the developed world went from 70% to 2%. We have been through this before. We can generate new jobs.

Re: Will minimum wage hikes lead to a huge boost in automation? Only if we're lucky

#190

Post by white-flame »

guelo wrote: post #57

FYI, large minimum wage increases in the San Francisco Bay Area in the last few years have been accompanied by drops in unemployment.

Has the size of the minimum wage worker pool decreased as well? That area is pushing out the non-high-income.
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