361–370 of 376 posts
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Make new taxes on automation, robots, AI, Internet business?
Companies already pay taxes and even with automation their revenue will dwindle when their consumer base will shrink due to automation.
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Agreed. It's interesting that this thread is almost entirely about low wage earners. Truck drivers were added to the conversation, but the truth is it's not about low wage earning, but about rote working. In 10-20 years, i'd expect The job of accountant being pretty much wiped off the map for humans. Turbo Tax, et. al, was a nascent first step. Doctors, Nurses, Hospital Administrators, Staff will be significantly par…
Well the truck driver's work is not only to drive. Also to do maintenance on the truck, inventory and such. How do you change a flat tire on a self driving truck? You will still need some alternative. That alternative can be automated, sure... but it's a problem yet to be solved.
It seems like with regards to restaurants, this would only mostly apply to fast-food restaurants. Raising the minimum wage doesn't really appear to have an effect on servers given that the majority of their pay is from tips and they are effectively legally paid less than minimum wage anyway. Furthermore, it isn't supposed to be a living wage. You're not supposed to be a single mother of 3 supporting yourself working…
What made you go from 30k to 50k to 75k to 100k to 150k?
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80% of the country lives in urban areas and this number is increasing.
So you are assuming that all urban areas have a similar cost of living to san francisco?
Let me make a few assertions:
- The greatest benefits from a rise in minimum wage will go to those with the lowest cost of living.
- Living in an urban area (dollar for dollar) is more expensive than living in a non-urban area.
- Most minimum wage jobs exist in cities (according to Pew Research): http://www.pewresearch.org/files/2014/09/FT_14.09.08_Minimum...
- To work in a city, it has become increasingly beneficial to live in close proximity or inside a city.
Therefore, an increase in minimum wage, while certainly helpful, is going to have less of an impact than one would hope, simply because those who work minimum wage jobs have a higher cost of living by needing to be close to cities in order to work those same jobs.
How did someone come to this conclusion? "Right now the retirement age is rising from 65 to 67, and most people think it will have to go up to 70. If robots can do a lot of the work instead, we could put it back down to 65 or even to 62 while still growing the economy. " Robots are going to pay the social security tax.
If that doesn't happen wealth inequality will continue to spike and lead to severe consequences.
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How is this not patently false? If you take someone living below the poverty line, earning minimum wage, renting their meager apartment, eating highly processed carbs and pseudo-meat, in debt to their bank and payday loan sharks, and under constant threat of homelessness brought on by unexpected illness or economic downturn, how is this situation in any way superior to a king or queen as they existed before "our gene…
I think that image of monarchs comes from the movies? The famous inventory of Charlemagne's estate includes 2 cups, one chair and a towel. Their food back then was bad meat and oatmeal, no matter who you were. Indeed, just the existence of cheap antibiotics are likely to make the most humble of today's citizens live decades longer than anyone from the past.
I'm going to guess none unless you forget your toothbrush or some other small item. The estate of a king is essentially a hotel room that he also happens to own along with dozens or hundreds of other such locations scattered around the country he rules. Little inventory would be kept there since the majority of day to day furnishing, and I do mean furnishings as including pieces of furniture, would travel with the court as they moved from estate to estate. Nothing valuable would be left behind for the same reasons that you wouldn't leave your laptop at the hotel after you check out, chances are when you come back (if you come back) it's not going to be there and if it is there's a good chance someone else will have had their grubby paws all over it the entire time you were away.
After looking up the inventory in question, it also happens to contain enough livestock and grain to feed well over a 100 people (there were about 100 full time residents) as well as a list of buildings including the mansio itself, two smaller manors, 17 wooden houses, 3 barns, a stable, a kitchen, a mill, two gardens, and a granary. There were also more than 60 horses boarded there.
As for kings not living as long as modern paupers, Charlemagne was a septuagenarian when he died.
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Most businesses don't require a license to operate unless they deal with controlled goods like tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, or the exploitation of natural resources. Beyond that, what the government provides is the articles of incorporation to limit the liability of investors, and allow the owners and operators of the business to act as a single entity within the court system. If we take away the articles of in…
Where do you live? That's simply not true here, where any business which has to collect sales tax (i.e. nearly everyone) needs a "Transaction Privilege Tax" license.
If the US were a VAT-style country, everyone would have to register for taxation purposes.
Regardless, at least in the USA, sales tax registration is not the same thing as a licence to operate. You can start a business dealing in tangible goods, and begin selling to out-of-state customers without needing to register for sales tax. The in-state registration for sales tax is simply that---registration, there's no qualifications that you need to attain before you get it, and even without registration you are still required to collect sales taxes.
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You think the image of monarchs comes from the movies and that actually monarchs had little more than a couple of cups? I'm sorry but that is a very delusional view.
I don't think; I just read the evidence. E.g. http://legacy.fordham.edu/Halsall/source/800Asnapium.asp
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No, no it is not, for fuck's sake. Automation is not new. The spinning Jenny was invented in 1764. Robot labor has been here since industrialization started and there is NOTHING new in the last twenty years. Automation is only the replacement of manual labor with machine labor, a.k.a productivity growth. If you've noticed, economies have been growing for centuries. In fact, growth is slower now than in the past. Auto…
New or not, there are more and more jobs which are becoming automated and it is a valid question to ask how society should be organized when all jobs would be automated.
There is plenty of work. An astonishing amount of work is available for people to do that isn't being done, and it's not because people are obsolete. What is lacking is capital directed at hiring people for that work. You can argue about why this is, but the basic reason to me is the general lack of demand because, more or less, the rich have all the money.
Here is Krugman on the subject: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2015/12/17/robert-reich-chal...
