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America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

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Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#31

Post by ryandrake »

tartuffe78 wrote: post #2

Who will buy the phones when no one is paid to produce them? The cars? The food and the clothes? Wealth keeps concentrating upward, great leaps in efficiency and throughput, but I can't see how it's a sustainable model for continued consumption growth year after year.

> Who will buy the phones when no one is paid to produce them? The cars? The food and the clothes?

Other wealthy people. I knew someone in the yacht-building business who would say "If you want a business that will last, sell to rich people--they're the ones who have money." We are very quickly moving towards a world where the economic activity (earning + spending + producing) of the median person is insignificant next to the activity of the very rich. There are individuals who have more wealth than the GDP of entire countries.

We're bifurcating into a society like the movie Elysium: A relatively small number of wealthy people who matter to the economy, and a huge number scraping by day to day whose economic activity amounts to a rounding error in the grand scheme of things.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#32

Post by markus_zhang »

dttze wrote: post #29
markus_zhang wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is probably going to happen I think. But I don't think it's going to achieve much. Yes it's going to give common people some foothold, but with automation and AI I really doubt we need that many jobs, and unemployment rate is going to be high anyway. The elites are going to throw UBI as a bone and then they can do whatever they want. And that's it -- A cyberpunk future where elites can pretty much ignore the comm…

This is the optimistic take. The reality is they will find some way to cull the unwanted poor. These elites in power are stupid, cruel, spiteful, and have no sense of decency.

If they don't adopt UBI then some populist politicians are gonna raise a flag and grab some power.

They don't really need those lower end resources anyway. I think they are OK to give them away just in case.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#33

Post by bryanlarsen »

llamaimperative wrote: post #16
markus_zhang wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is probably going to happen I think. But I don't think it's going to achieve much. Yes it's going to give common people some foothold, but with automation and AI I really doubt we need that many jobs, and unemployment rate is going to be high anyway. The elites are going to throw UBI as a bone and then they can do whatever they want. And that's it -- A cyberpunk future where elites can pretty much ignore the comm…

UBI won't fix much for a far more trivial and mechanistic reason: adding $1,000/mo to everyone's income merely gives landlords the ability to charge ($1,000*n bedrooms)/mo more in rent.

Landlords have pricing power because people have to live close to their jobs. If UBI lets people move freely, landlords lose their pricing power.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#34

Post by krapp »

llamaimperative wrote: post #16
markus_zhang wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is probably going to happen I think. But I don't think it's going to achieve much. Yes it's going to give common people some foothold, but with automation and AI I really doubt we need that many jobs, and unemployment rate is going to be high anyway. The elites are going to throw UBI as a bone and then they can do whatever they want. And that's it -- A cyberpunk future where elites can pretty much ignore the comm…

UBI won't fix much for a far more trivial and mechanistic reason: adding $1,000/mo to everyone's income merely gives landlords the ability to charge ($1,000*n bedrooms)/mo more in rent.

Landlords can't simply arbitrarily raise rents like that. If they could, they would already charge every individual tenant 100% of their income. Renting is a market like any other, and markets have limits and competition. The renters that do try to increase rent by $1000 will simply not have tenants anymore, and those that didn't, would, because UBI means people can basically move anywhere, any time they like.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#36

Post by llamaimperative »

krapp wrote: post #34
llamaimperative wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI won't fix much for a far more trivial and mechanistic reason: adding $1,000/mo to everyone's income merely gives landlords the ability to charge ($1,000*n bedrooms)/mo more in rent.

Landlords can't simply arbitrarily raise rents like that. If they could, they would already charge every individual tenant 100% of their income. Renting is a market like any other, and markets have limits and competition. The renters that do try to increase rent by $1000 will simply not have tenants anymore, and those that didn't, would, because UBI means people can basically move anywhere, any time they like.

It’s not “arbitrary.” It’s raising rents for the same reason rents are ever raised: people’s willingness/ability to pay has gone up.

That can happen because of a new subway station, a hot new employer nearby, or simply because money appeared in their pockets.

If money were no object, more people would live in high COL areas, not fewer. You know this is true because you see it in the prices.

To prevent rent increases you’d need people all to have $n appeared in their pockets and to have a pact not to then spend $n to upgrade their living arrangements. The cruel irony of course being if everyone attempts to upgrade, then no one achieves an upgrade but they do achieve spending their new money!

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#37

Post by netsharc »

ryandrake wrote: post #31
tartuffe78 wrote: post #2

Who will buy the phones when no one is paid to produce them? The cars? The food and the clothes? Wealth keeps concentrating upward, great leaps in efficiency and throughput, but I can't see how it's a sustainable model for continued consumption growth year after year.

> Who will buy the phones when no one is paid to produce them? The cars? The food and the clothes? Other wealthy people. I knew someone in the yacht-building business who would say "If you want a business that will last, sell to rich people--they're the ones who have money." We are very quickly moving towards a world where the economic activity (earning + spending + producing) of the median person is insignificant ne…

The Uberfication of the workforce is incredible to see: you work when the algorithms tell you there's work, you'll get paid what it wants to pay you.

Cheap transport, cheap postage, cheap delivery of foods...

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#38

Post by dragonwriter »

llamaimperative wrote: post #16
markus_zhang wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is probably going to happen I think. But I don't think it's going to achieve much. Yes it's going to give common people some foothold, but with automation and AI I really doubt we need that many jobs, and unemployment rate is going to be high anyway. The elites are going to throw UBI as a bone and then they can do whatever they want. And that's it -- A cyberpunk future where elites can pretty much ignore the comm…

UBI won't fix much for a far more trivial and mechanistic reason: adding $1,000/mo to everyone's income merely gives landlords the ability to charge ($1,000*n bedrooms)/mo more in rent.

No, it doesn't, and the proof of that is that landlords don't already charge 100% of income.

You seem to be assuming housing rental is an perfectly monopolistic market, which it isn't, and any place where it even loosely approximates that needs to correct that whether or not UBI is adopted.

Re: America Is Missing The New Labor Economy – Robotics Part 1

#40

Post by llamaimperative »

dragonwriter wrote: post #38
llamaimperative wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI won't fix much for a far more trivial and mechanistic reason: adding $1,000/mo to everyone's income merely gives landlords the ability to charge ($1,000*n bedrooms)/mo more in rent.

No, it doesn't, and the proof of that is that landlords don't already charge 100% of income. You seem to be assuming housing rental is an perfectly monopolistic market, which it isn't, and any place where it even loosely approximates that needs to correct that whether or not UBI is adopted.

Okay then you tell me: why do rents go up at all?
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