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We Need a New Deal to Address the Economic Risks of Automation

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Re: We Need a New Deal to Address the Economic Risks of Automation

#31

Post by socmag »

skizm wrote: post #21
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no resource scarcity. 6 men own as much wealth as the poorest 50% of the _planet_. This is a crisis of capitalism and wealth distribution.

You can't eat money though. If they (the 6 most wealthy people) cashed in all their stock and re-distributed their wealth as best they could, the value of money would plummet since so much more is in circulation. It would crash the global economy and cause even more poverty.

Huh, it's already in distribution. Presumably those shares are held by institutions who use those for investments in projects.

That only the few can control which projects are invested in and compounded by [lack of] any semblance of "altruistic transparency" is the main concern not the wealth itself.

Re: We Need a New Deal to Address the Economic Risks of Automation

#32

Post by devoply »

pharrlax wrote: post #30
devoply wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have more than enough resources. If working does not provide enough sustenance then we need to replace the government. These are political issues not economic ones. We can solve the problem of production with automation, however the problem of distribution remains and if the government is not distributing resources to you then you need to take that government down and replace it with one that does. That ultimatum…

>It's fine with me if these people live like kings and the rest of us have enough resources and all the free time in the world to do whatever we want and not be encumbered by trivial work. One problem with this that springs to mind is that historically, relative numbers of young, bored, jobless men and crime rates are tightly correlated.

Gaming. Virtual reality. Virtual reality porn. They can be hooligans there. You want somewhere to prove yourself do it there. We should in fact create a de facto virtual reality simulation to take over lots of useless social things we do with material goods and services like expensive cars, clothing, and whatnot. All the conspicuous consumption can happen in virtual reality. That's much better for the environment too. Leave the actual real world alone and focus on implementing our imaginations in the virtual world.

It's already happening: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-video-games-jobs-e...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/13/gamer-prefers-virtu...

Re: We Need a New Deal to Address the Economic Risks of Automation

#33

Post by skizm »

maxerickson wrote: post #23
skizm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't eat money though. If they (the 6 most wealthy people) cashed in all their stock and re-distributed their wealth as best they could, the value of money would plummet since so much more is in circulation. It would crash the global economy and cause even more poverty.

No it wouldn't. The global economy is tens of trillions of dollars. Drop a couple trillion in there and it just gets consumed.

Inflation occurs when the US government adds around $10 billion of money to the market every year though (they print money to replace existing / lost currency, but always over produce). The money gets "consumed" but the value of each dollar goes down. And that's just with $10 billion.

That point aside, my original point was that just because the 6 richest people have paper value of more than half the planet doesn't mean there are enough resources to keep everyone alive just because they are born. (which is ideal in a theoretical world obviously)

Re: We Need a New Deal to Address the Economic Risks of Automation

#34

Post by golergka »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #29
socmag wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I disagree with your sentiment, but it isn't quite so black and white. 6 men owning as much wealth as the poorest 50% of the planet doesn't actually mean much while ever they aren't keeping their money under the bed away from everyone else - it's still in distribution. They still go to sleep at night, get up in a morning, have a shower and grab a cup of coffee then go to the bathroom, eat dinner, watch a mov…

> on the other hand, that six individuals have the power to control how their money is distributed is a very real problem, but the wealth itself isn't. I wouldn't say the wealth is the problem, but wealth inequality is. Our current system allows for a few people to make millions of dollars a day while others can't even get jobs or afford a house. A certain amount of inequality is required to incentivize high performe…

> the current amount of inequality is obscene

Can you back this opinion up with some arguments?

Re: We Need a New Deal to Address the Economic Risks of Automation

#35

Post by maxerickson »

daliwali wrote: post #27
d--b wrote: post #19

You don't really have to speculate. Automation is going to do to the service industry what globalization did to manufacturing. Manufacturing got "automated" away by sending work to places where labor costs next to nothing. Did the offshoring of manufacture jobs create joblessness? Actually I'm not sure what the answer to that is. According to statistics the US is running at full employment. According to pretty much e…

Because the unemployment rate is a lie. It is denominated by the "labor force", which, if one excludes those who are no longer seeking work or chronically unemployed, it's basically being dishonest with statistics. One does not have to feign ignorance as to why there is a disconnect between the statistics and the reality.

It's not a lie, it's a technical measure that people misinterpret.

If it was a lie you'd expect suppression of the further data.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

Re: We Need a New Deal to Address the Economic Risks of Automation

#36

Post by jk563 »

pharrlax wrote: post #30
devoply wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have more than enough resources. If working does not provide enough sustenance then we need to replace the government. These are political issues not economic ones. We can solve the problem of production with automation, however the problem of distribution remains and if the government is not distributing resources to you then you need to take that government down and replace it with one that does. That ultimatum…

>It's fine with me if these people live like kings and the rest of us have enough resources and all the free time in the world to do whatever we want and not be encumbered by trivial work. One problem with this that springs to mind is that historically, relative numbers of young, bored, jobless men and crime rates are tightly correlated.

I think that instead of creating pseudo-jobs to counter this, perhaps we look into the 'bored' aspect. Can we provide stimulation to avert the negative results seen historically? When we say that we have and distribute the resources needed to survive, do we include entertainment among these resources?

Re: We Need a New Deal to Address the Economic Risks of Automation

#37

Post by rhapsodic »

deelowe wrote: post #3
behnamoh wrote: post #2

Automation is the natural consequence of computer technology, which is a natural consequence of human intelligence. Any effort to fight or control automation is doomed. Believe it or not, the future is gonna be much different and you either accept it, or get crushed by the power of The Machine.

Ok. What do we do during the transition while millions of blue collar workers take to blaming brown people for job losses? EDIT - seems I could have done a better job with the satire here. There have been several reports that Donald Trump's Mexican wall is misguided and that the major driver of job losses these days is increased effeciency due to automation.

Yes, Democratic Party, please keep insulting working-class American citizens by calling them vile names. The Republican Party will be happy to receive their votes.

Re: We Need a New Deal to Address the Economic Risks of Automation

#39

Post by pc86 »

devoply wrote: post #32
pharrlax wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's fine with me if these people live like kings and the rest of us have enough resources and all the free time in the world to do whatever we want and not be encumbered by trivial work. One problem with this that springs to mind is that historically, relative numbers of young, bored, jobless men and crime rates are tightly correlated.

Gaming. Virtual reality. Virtual reality porn. They can be hooligans there. You want somewhere to prove yourself do it there. We should in fact create a de facto virtual reality simulation to take over lots of useless social things we do with material goods and services like expensive cars, clothing, and whatnot. All the conspicuous consumption can happen in virtual reality. That's much better for the environment too…

This argument ignores history, human psychology, and basic reality.

Re: We Need a New Deal to Address the Economic Risks of Automation

#40

Post by maxerickson »

skizm wrote: post #33
maxerickson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it wouldn't. The global economy is tens of trillions of dollars. Drop a couple trillion in there and it just gets consumed.

Inflation occurs when the US government adds around $10 billion of money to the market every year though (they print money to replace existing / lost currency, but always over produce). The money gets "consumed" but the value of each dollar goes down. And that's just with $10 billion. That point aside, my original point was that just because the 6 richest people have paper value of more than half the planet doesn't m…

The hundreds of billions in deficit spending and easy money at the Fed have a much greater impact on inflation than the amount of cash in circulation (if the nominal size of the economy grows, you'd expect to need more cash...).
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