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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

#41
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Does your rent go up by the precise amount of your increase in income every year? Mine doesn't. My landlord isn't checking my W2 or tax statements for extra rent money, that isn't how it works.

The assumption that all rents, everywhere, would go up by the amount of UBI is the definition of "arbitrary."

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

#42
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Does your rent go up by the precise amount of your increase in income every year? Mine doesn't. My landlord isn't checking my W2 or tax statements for extra rent money, that isn't how it works. The assumption that all rents, everywhere, would go up by the amount of UBI is the definition of "arbitrary."

Are we talking about one person’s income going up, or knowably every single person’s income going up by a known amount?

When minimum wage rises, yes rents rise.

When high paying employers come to an area, yes rents rise.

These are a lot more random/diffuse in the market than UBI is, but they still cause the same effect.

Can you please explain why rents go up at all?

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

#43
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Additional income is not additional willingness to pay 100% of that income forthe currently-purchased quality and quantity of one particular good or service, and even if it was that's a demand shift which without a supply change, will still result in a smaller increase in rent.

UBI, which any realistic method of implementing makes a shift in income from somewhere higher on the income spectrum to somewhere lower (the exact shift being defined by the UBI level and financing mechanism), most likely (if it replaces existing means tested welfare programs) most favoring a level somewhere above where current welfare programs start tapering off, does have some predictable price effects, but they aren't “all rents go up by an amount equal to the UBI amount times the number of recipients typically living in similar units”.

First order, they are some price increases across goods and services disproportionately demanded by the group benefitting in net, with some price decreases across those disproportionately demanded by the group paying in net. These will vary by elasticity, but in total should effect some (but less than total) compression of the time money shift, reducing somewhat the real cost to those paying and the real benefit to those receiving, but with less effect on those paying because of lower marginal propensity to spend with higher income.

Beyond first order is more complicated because you have to work through demand changes,and supply chnages caused by labor market changes from reduced economic coercion, increased labor market mobility and ability to retrain for more-preferred jobs, which are going to decreased supply for some jobs, increase supply for others (though on different schedules), etc.

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

#44
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your rent go up by the precise amount of your increase in income every year? Mine doesn't. My landlord isn't checking my W2 or tax statements for extra rent money, that isn't how it works. The assumption that all rents, everywhere, would go up by the amount of UBI is the definition of "arbitrary."

Are we talking about one person’s income going up, or knowably every single person’s income going up by a known amount? When minimum wage rises, yes rents rise. When high paying employers come to an area, yes rents rise. These are a lot more random/diffuse in the market than UBI is, but they still cause the same effect. Can you please explain why rents go up at all?

>Are we talking about one person’s income going up, or knowably every single person’s income going up by a known amount?

What does it matter?

You're claiming landlords have the ability to set rents directly based on a tenant's income.

Rents can rise based on minimum wage, but all renters do not raise their rents precisely by the increase in minimum wage.

And when high paying employers come to an area, not all renters raise rents accordingly.

You're ignoring that market forces exist affecting rent other than the simple greed of landlords. Not every landlord would increase rent by the amount of UBI because there is an obvious market opportunity in not doing so, and because not every property could justify that, even with UBI.

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

#45
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paranoia is the USA's way of life, when life always seems to be teetering on the edge of a cliff: losing your job at a moment's time, losing your life savings for a healthcare emergency, losing your kid to a school shooting, losing your stuff to burglars. Any of these have a very low chance of happening but they can be so life-changing that Americans seem to always be in some state of paranoia, a low-trust society wi…

I've observed this as well, I do wonder though if that doesn't strongly encourage competitivity(is this word right? autocorrect highlights it, huh) and make people work... well, more. More effective, more time, more angry. It's certainly one possible explanation for why they dominate in many areas. But it does sound like such an exhausting thing.

> competitivity "competitiveness" might be the word you want.

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

#46

China is known to scale out in the low end market without having a strategy to go upmarket. Reading this article I honestly got the opposite impression. China is hopelessly behind Japan in both high end machine tools and robotics.

China is definitely growing quickly. At the trade shows I go to where some of the robots in the article are presented, Chinese companies have become quite prominent in the last few years when they were completely non-existent 10 years ago.

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

#47

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.

Most participants in mature markets know approximately what percentage of the public's wallet they can grab. Obviously it's not 100% for any of them, but they all know what they can get away with.

My guess is that if UBI added $1,000/mo to everyone's income, landlords would respond by raising rent by about $400-$500 or so, grocery stores would raise their prices by a percentage of that new income, and so on for all businesses, until all $1,000 was soaked up and the public is no better off than they were before.

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

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where discussions of post-scarcity and post-labor economy come in, like UBI. We keep kicking the can down the road on that front, but this is going to happen and we need to establish such a sustainable model. Unfortunately, it really seems like the plan is to strip the house of the copper for billionaires to become trillionaires, then burn down the house with the rest of us inside.

1. there are limits to natural resources. 2. UBI is basically keeping humans as pets. 3. what value do billionaires bring to the table if their insight and wisdom can be replicated by a machine.

> 2. UBI is basically keeping humans as pets.

UBI is similar to confining an animal? Deciding what and when it eats, when it bathes, where it goes? Training it, whether it likes it or not? Deciding whether it gets medical care? Whether it gets to have companions of its own kind?

I thought it was giving people money.

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

#49
post #39

I would like to see a robot hand try and plug in a MCIO or OcuLink connector to its MB port because even my fat fingers have trouble seating them in correctly.

Do you not have enough supports/standoffs on your mobo? Just because your case comes with 6 doesn't mean you only need 6.

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

#50
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we talking about one person’s income going up, or knowably every single person’s income going up by a known amount? When minimum wage rises, yes rents rise. When high paying employers come to an area, yes rents rise. These are a lot more random/diffuse in the market than UBI is, but they still cause the same effect. Can you please explain why rents go up at all?

>Are we talking about one person’s income going up, or knowably every single person’s income going up by a known amount? What does it matter? You're claiming landlords have the ability to set rents directly based on a tenant's income. Rents can rise based on minimum wage, but all renters do not raise their rents precisely by the increase in minimum wage. And when high paying employers come to an area, not all renters…

No landlord is looking at a particular tenant's income under the microscope and adjusting their rent. But, of course they do it in aggregate based on averages. UBI shifts the overall demand curve, and every supplier of goods will adjust their prices proportionally.
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