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Are jobs obsolete?

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Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#301

Post by mayutana »

andreroehrig wrote: post #210
mayutana wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, there are leaches too. But the goal to ensure that everyone has a basic level of living standard is in the direction of what the OP talks about. Note that this is different from the systems implemented in USSR where everyone was provided the same, regardless of their skills or efforts.

It is not true that "everyone was provided the same, regardless of their skills or efforts" in actually existing socialist countries like the USSR. Some data for example on GDR(German text, but the numbers should be ok): http://doku.iab.de/mittab/1990/1990_4_mittab_stephan_wiedema...

I am talking about the model and not how it was implemented. Hypothetically speaking there is a difference between the three models: a) provide the same to all, b) Let everyone fend for themselves, and c) Provide a basic livelihood to all and allow the ones capable of earning more to do so.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#302

Post by anamax »

Spyro7 wrote: post #248
anamax wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problems in the USPS did not begin with email. They began with a highly questionable requirement that the USPS fund a plan to fully cover the estimated future health care costs of all current employees. They are the only government institution required to do this, and it has crippled their ability to remain profitable: "fully cover estimated future costs" means that they're the only govt institution that isn't…

> "means that they're the only govt institution that isn't a timebomb of future obligations" This was the spirit in which the requirement was enacted. I completely agree with the idea. My problem with this line of reasoning is this: Why fund the estimated lifetime costs of health care that will not be provided for maybe 40 or so years into the future? Why not fund a moving window of ten or twenty years of obligations…

> Why fund the estimated lifetime costs of health care that will not be provided for maybe 40 or so years into the future? Why not fund a moving window of ten or twenty years of obligations instead?

Because it has incurred those obligations and nothing that happens in the next 10-20 years will make those obligations go away. However, 10-20 years from now, it won't have today's revenue to cover those obligations. In addition, ten years from now it will be incurring additional obligations.

Those obligations have a net present value. If you don't fund them now, you have to fund the remainder later out of future revenues while you're also trying to fund at least part of the obligations that you're incurring then.

Let's assume steady state. If you always fund the net present value of 10-20 years of the obligatations that you incurred in the past and present, you'll eventually end up funding the equivalent of the obligations that you're incurring, but you're behind by the amount that you didn't fund during the ramp. You have to make that up in addition to the equivalent of just funding NPV of what you're incurring.

Do the arithmetic over time - funding the total net present value of future obligations is only sustainable way to handle said obligations.

A pension promise is not like a mortgage - it's just a debt with no collateral; there's no equity to sell if you can't make the payments.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#303

Post by anamax »

Spyro7 wrote: post #248
anamax wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problems in the USPS did not begin with email. They began with a highly questionable requirement that the USPS fund a plan to fully cover the estimated future health care costs of all current employees. They are the only government institution required to do this, and it has crippled their ability to remain profitable: "fully cover estimated future costs" means that they're the only govt institution that isn't…

> "means that they're the only govt institution that isn't a timebomb of future obligations" This was the spirit in which the requirement was enacted. I completely agree with the idea. My problem with this line of reasoning is this: Why fund the estimated lifetime costs of health care that will not be provided for maybe 40 or so years into the future? Why not fund a moving window of ten or twenty years of obligations…

> This is why I question the rationality of handicapping the USPS with the responsibility for funding far-future liabilities based on those projections.

You're ignoring the fact that those liabilities are being incurred today. If you can't pay them with current revenues, how are you going to pay them with future revenues that also have to cover the liabilities that you're incurring when you're receiving said future revenues.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that there's no way to properly estimate the NPV of this sort of open-ended liability, but that's an argument for not incurring such a liability. It's not an argument for paying less than your best guess of said NPV.

> Even if you ignore the opportunity costs of this fund,

There is no "opportunity cost" in not paying NPV now.

Suppose that your landlord offered to let you pay each month's rent starting 1 year from now and over the 10 succeeding years. How much should you set aside? The only answer that keeps you solvent is to set aside the NPV of the payment stream for each month's rent payments each and every month.

Do the arithmetic. After each month, you've got a new liability that you're going to owe after you stop receiving any corresponding benefit. At the end of year N+1, you're making payments on N years worth of rent (capped at 10) and those payments will continue for 10 years after you stop renting. (Yes, they'll decrease over time, but since you won't be getting the benefit of whatever you were renting, it's unclear why you're happy paying for it with "new money" that you probably need for replacement digs.)

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#304

Post by gavanwoolery »

Spyro7 wrote: post #209

Why is this being upvoted? This article begins with a questionable premise and then descends straight into misinformation. The problems in the USPS did not begin with email. They began with a highly questionable requirement that the USPS fund a plan to fully cover the estimated future health care costs of all current employees. They are the only government institution required to do this, and it has crippled their ab…

In defense of the article's author, it may sound like blasphemy but he brings up some very good points about job creation.

The problems with the USPS might not have begun with email, but email will probably be what kills it (and the fax machine is doing a pretty good job as well).

Automation is a reality we are going to have to face. At some point, it is going to kill almost every manual labor job in the world, probably within our lifetime (IMHO). What do we do with "unskilled" labor then? As I see it, I think living will probably be more or less "free" in the future. When automation is so great that it can rely only on the earth's basic resources and natural energies, food, utilities, and basic housing will probably be affordable enough for anyone, if not outright free.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#306

Post by kamaal »

noahc wrote: post #200
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #191

Let me see if I understand this reasoning correctly. Old, fragile and stiff huge organizations like the Post Office cannot provide the numbers of jobs they used to. The economy is changing. Therefore -- some hand-waving here -- the very idea of jobs is out-of-date. Ouch. But it gets better. We should pay folks not to work. After all, there's no jobs for them, so why should we expect them to do things that are impossi…

I think we need a class in school called 'Identifying and Creating Value in the 21st Century (like your great great grandparents did)." Let's be honest, that's where the jobs are going to come from and where they are going to go. The point of the class is to get people to go from "What do I want to be when I grow up" to thinking "How can I add value to some process that people will pay me for." This puts the responsi…

Here in India, when I went to school 10 years back there was a subject called 'SUPW' - which expands to "Socially useful productive work'.

They generally teach kids how to make some thing very simple which can actually be sell-able or used to solve a problem.

I and my other friends like 5 other kids had made some 5-6 door mats from cigarette packs alone. And then we were taught how to go and sell them. I remember we had made some thing like 200 rupees back then(A pretty a big amount for kids). There were many such small projects, Many had woven designer baskets. Or some kind of a trivial sofa using cardboard.

Unfortunately I heard, these days that subject is no longer being taught for more fancier things like karate, or learning parts of a computer.

In short, in school they taught us how to hack. Generate wealth.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#307

Post by samyzee »

kamaal wrote: post #306
noahc wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need a class in school called 'Identifying and Creating Value in the 21st Century (like your great great grandparents did)." Let's be honest, that's where the jobs are going to come from and where they are going to go. The point of the class is to get people to go from "What do I want to be when I grow up" to thinking "How can I add value to some process that people will pay me for." This puts the responsi…

Here in India, when I went to school 10 years back there was a subject called 'SUPW' - which expands to "Socially useful productive work'. They generally teach kids how to make some thing very simple which can actually be sell-able or used to solve a problem. I and my other friends like 5 other kids had made some 5-6 door mats from cigarette packs alone. And then we were taught how to go and sell them. I remember we…

And some kids like me used to call it "some useful periods wasted"!!

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#308

Post by anatoly »

wbienek wrote: post #259
netaustin wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far as I know, the Google Car has not displaced any taxi drivers yet, though the author of the post puts it in the same sentence as EZ Pass.

No mercy. Let em go out of business. It is a corrupt monopoly. Try to start a competing taxi business. (or tow business) and you'll see you do NOT live in a free market. Again. No mercy. After decades they'll be getting theirs.. (yes I tried once upon a time)

What happened?

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#309

Post by Radim »

Retric wrote: post #181
ChuckMcM wrote: post #166

Pulling out a specific nit: "America is productive enough that it could probably shelter, feed, educate, and even provide health care for its entire population with just a fraction of us actually working." And from an old college textbook on the definition of economics - Economics is the study of how society manages its scarce resources. Here it the hard nut in the thesis, what mechanism, process, or theory, could ma…

A major nitpick as a middle American a disproportionate percentage of MY salary is used to support the poor relative to rich people. The vast majority of wealth redistribution in this country is though SS which the wealthy get to opt out from. When you consider that I pay more in SS as a percentage of my income than Warren Buffet's entire tax bill there is something wrong with this picture. (In theory I might see som…

I'm surprised noone commented on the "as a percentage of my income" bait. So I'll bite :)

It is in no way obvious or written in stone that what matters are "percent of income". For many centuries, per capita tax was the norm. Indeed, you could argue that what matters is the actual, absolute amount taken from an individual, by threat of force, and not some abstract proxy metric. There, arguably, Buffet delivers more than you?

The amount delivered without the threat of force (charity) is yet another thing.

Re: Are jobs obsolete?

#310

Post by infinite_vision »

reader5000 wrote: post #265
Spyro7 wrote: post #209

Why is this being upvoted? This article begins with a questionable premise and then descends straight into misinformation. The problems in the USPS did not begin with email. They began with a highly questionable requirement that the USPS fund a plan to fully cover the estimated future health care costs of all current employees. They are the only government institution required to do this, and it has crippled their ab…

> The critics say this time is different, this time there will be no new jobs, and we should urge people to find something other to do than working. The critics are wrong. Don't worry people. Employment is here to stay. I mean this is hand-waving as well. You havent actually provided any substantive counter-argument other than bring up the Luddites. I think the basic argument that at some point, possibly already past…

There is this new economic system being proposed to address all these realities of the future with the advancement of automation: http://p2pfoundation.net/Panoply
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