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New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

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Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People with immense wealth (Gates, Buffet, ...) are great at coming up with innovative tax schemes to tax anything other than wealth.

Actually, Buffet's idea for quite a while has been that he and the other billionaires should be taxed more. It may be just PR, but that's a different goalpost.

My understanding of Buffett's tax plan is that it is an income tax. Buffett and Gates both don't need much income proportionate to their wealth, they don't intend to spend/consume their fortune or pass it on to their children.

Buffett's plan calls for a lot of other wealthy people to be taxed, but I don't see him doing a taxable transaction on his main holdings, I believe the effect on himself would be minuscule.

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#43
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how much will the human labor cost per shirt be once these automatic t-shirt machines are moved to Bangladesh?

Why will the machines need to be located in Bangladesh? Cheaper repairmen?

i was just thinking like some business owner might: let's try to lower costs in every possible way, including labor.

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how much will the human labor cost per shirt be once these automatic t-shirt machines are moved to Bangladesh?

Robot production lines need robot technicians to support them. I doubt you'll find many of those in Bangladesh any time soon.

eventually though. there are, no doubt, some very skillful, very resourceful sewing machine repair techs there.

i guess that time window is how long the automatic t-shirt making business remains viable in the US.

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Buffet's idea for quite a while has been that he and the other billionaires should be taxed more. It may be just PR, but that's a different goalpost.

My understanding of Buffett's tax plan is that it is an income tax. Buffett and Gates both don't need much income proportionate to their wealth, they don't intend to spend/consume their fortune or pass it on to their children. Buffett's plan calls for a lot of other wealthy people to be taxed, but I don't see him doing a taxable transaction on his main holdings, I believe the effect on himself would be minuscule.

[deleted]

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#46
post #16

Should we need a basic standard of what can be called Robots? We're in an age of journalism where almost anything that can do what humans do (Guess, had calculator been invented in this age,'This automated Robot can do as many calculation as 3 Accountants' would have been a viral article) is called a Robot. But what we forget is that it's always been the case all this while, Consider a Toll collection booth with huma…

They were calling a NAS a "data robot" 10 years ago ! (drobo)

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#47
post #42

Friendly reminder that building a wall isn't going to keep blue collar jobs around. Automation is going to kill them much quicker than immigrants will.

.. and no amount of cheap immigrant labour won't stop automation.

Which is why the less immigrants, the better. Less people kicked out of jobs == easier to implement UBI or similar system.

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#48
post #6

This reminds me about when Bill Gates make that comment saying that raising the minimal wage could make the cost trade-off of investing in automation worthwhile [1]. On one hand, people need living wages. But on the other hand, I think we're witnessing what Bill Gates is talking about here. What's the solution? Gates has floated the idea of taxing robots. [1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-bots-are-taking…

People with immense wealth (Gates, Buffet, ...) are great at coming up with innovative tax schemes to tax anything other than wealth.

Then you don't have to worry, because they also plan to give away their wealth.

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, Buffet's idea for quite a while has been that he and the other billionaires should be taxed more. It may be just PR, but that's a different goalpost.

My understanding of Buffett's tax plan is that it is an income tax. Buffett and Gates both don't need much income proportionate to their wealth, they don't intend to spend/consume their fortune or pass it on to their children. Buffett's plan calls for a lot of other wealthy people to be taxed, but I don't see him doing a taxable transaction on his main holdings, I believe the effect on himself would be minuscule.

I don't see him doing a taxable transaction on his main holdings

How so? Either he passes it on to his heirs or he uses it (selling the stock and realizing gains), both of which are taxable events. Since he has called for an increase on both the capital gains tax and on the estate tax, he'd be affected in any case.

Re: New t-shirt sewing robot can make as many shirts per hour as 17 factory workers

#50
post #2

$0.33 per shirt, anywhere in the world, is nearly as cheap as the cheapest sweatshop markets. I expect most commentary will look at this using a US vs China thing, but I'm more worried about SE Asia and Africa. They need to climb up the development ladder that China's already 1/2-way up. Say what you will about clothing and sneaker sweatshops, but they were a tried and tested method for building up the basics of an i…

Add this to the story about Nike funding and now deploying robots as well, and the economic impact could be really huge. It may help the West though...
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