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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

#41

Post by daliwali »

maxerickson wrote: post #35
daliwali wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There is no need to censor the data, as long as one can present it in a way that is favorable to a particular viewpoint. The fallacious argument being made with the unemployment rate lends itself to misinterpretation.

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

#43

Post by zip1234 »

I'm totally onboard with UBI if it is actually needed. The problem is people PROJECTING that it will be needed. In the current world human labor is very much in demand. Maybe people won't be able to use the specific degree that they went to school for but that just means a bit of retraining and/or a bit of mindset shift. If there is a massive outflux of jobs in America, then there are many questions that need to be answered before even approaching UBI as a solution. For example, "are all countries suffering the same job losses? If not, then why not?"

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

#44

Post by pavlov »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #24
pavlov wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with service jobs? If the problem is not the nature of the work but rather the pay, then that seems solvable by various forms of wealth redistribution. Universal basic income can be a good component in that.

They don't pay anything like jobs of the past used to. There used to be a large middle class that could afford things like housing, new vehicles, vacations, and hobbies on a regular basis. Service jobs generally don't provide that quality of life.

That can be fixed by policy. There's enough wealth to let everyone live decently and have hobbies without having to pretend that a person must deserve it by spending eight hours per day at an assembly line.

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

#45

Post by devoply »

pc86 wrote: post #39
devoply wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Human beings don't live in reality they live in their imaginations work to bring that imagination into the real world through technology. History is just that history, we never had this sort of tech so looking to history and saying it won't work is irrelevant. Basic psychology is that humans don't live in the real world but in their imaginations. There is already a subsection of society that's already so involved in gaming that they don't care about the "real" world any more, links on the edit above.

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

#46

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

golergka wrote: post #34
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I'm arguing that inequality at the moment is obscene. Here[1][2][3][4] are some sources backing up my claim.

Basically, inequality is massive and accelerating. It's hurting the lower and middle classes to the point that small business creation is slowing down a lot[5]. Seeing how a lot of people are employed in small businesses(49% of private sector workforce[6]), it's acting as a real drag on our economy, keeping wages down and making inequality even higher.

[1] http://inequality.org/wealth-inequality/ [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_Unite... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/05/21/the-t... [4] http://fortune.com/2015/09/30/america-wealth-inequality/ [5] http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/08/news/economy/us-startups-nea... [6] http://www.inc.com/jared-hecht/are-small-businesses-really-t...

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

#47

Post by digitalzombie »

Automation is going to happen anyway.

There are several ways we can deal with it.

1. We can set up a social safety net to transition displaced workers to a new trade/career.

2. Protectionism.

3. We do nothing.

4. basic income

---

Doing nothing is silly.

Basic income isn't going to pass in USA, universal healthcare haven't even pass yet.

Protectionism goes against capitalism and it doesn't help in the long run. It just extend a dying market like coals. We chose to become specialized a long time ago and not specializing is crazy.

So the most sensible thing is a safety net.

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

#48

Post by pg314 »

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…

> 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.

That's wrong. Inflation is more complicated than that. If it were that simple, Japan would not have had the years of sustained deflation.

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

#49

Post by ryanwaggoner »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #11
itchyjunk wrote: post #5

I think i've read one too many articles on the "oh no, the robots will flip our burgers. Let's make burgers that's unflippable by robots so we can keep doing it." Even people who don't mind working, maybe loves working will be okay with automating things and moving on. They will have other things in their hobby list/ bucket list/ garage that they have been meaning to work on. I understand these articles are still nee…

You're assuming that this is a rising tide that will lift all boats. What I'm afraid of is that the world will be split into capital owners who own all the robots, and the perpetually poor, who can't get jobs because they've all been automated and the only jobs remaining are minimum wage "service" jobs. And that's assuming there will be enough service jobs to go around. We're already seeing this split occur in USA. T…

The middle class is basically gone at this point, and the majority of people are either upper-middle class or lower class.

This is only true if you have some bizarre definitions that you're using. The decline of the middle class has been a few percentage points. It's certainly not "gone".

More than 50% of households in America make $25-100k. That's solidly middle-class.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_in_the_United_States

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

#50

Post by zip1234 »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #24
pavlov wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with service jobs? If the problem is not the nature of the work but rather the pay, then that seems solvable by various forms of wealth redistribution. Universal basic income can be a good component in that.

They don't pay anything like jobs of the past used to. There used to be a large middle class that could afford things like housing, new vehicles, vacations, and hobbies on a regular basis. Service jobs generally don't provide that quality of life.

I think you are looking at the past a bit optimistically. First off, many houses in the past were MUCH smaller. I know people of the WWII generation that raised their families in working class Detroit neighborhoods. They were considered middle class but raised a family of 7 in a 900 sq. foot house. Yes they went on vacations, but they drove and didn't go out to eat. They had usually only a single car. My point is that they didn't live as extravagant as you seem to think. By the way, you can still buy one of those houses for about 65k in Detroit today. A 30 year mortgage with 10k down on that is less than $300 a month for a mortgage payment.
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