61–70 of 87 posts
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Reminds of the quote: "A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch." Taxation when taken too far is immoral, regardless of the popular vote
That's why we have super majority and other means to combat tyranny by majority. So how does one define the point at which taxation becomes immoral?
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It seems to be mostly back to normal: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/U6RATE
Interesting - I wonder why that's basically recovered, but labor force participation is still at a 30 year low?
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> Oh come on, we've been over all of this a hundred times here on HN. I'm new here! Don't kill me! > Also known as taxation, I wrote a lengthy reply to this argument below. Automation: There are still tons of physical jobs. The point is that even when automation "almost completely eliminated" the first type, unemployment did not skyrocket. I'd rather base my policy prescriptions on history and well documented economi…
> I'm new here! Don't kill me! Sorry :). I'll leave that to Skynet ;). > The point is that even when automation "almost completely eliminated" the first type, unemployment did not skyrocket. Yeah, the labor pool moved to the service / cognitive jobs. With automation taking big bites off services and mental work, where should the labor pool move next? Now, I know there's a lot of place in marketing and all kind of bul…
CGPGrey rears his ugly head!
> Yeah, the labor pool moved to the service / cognitive jobs.
I'm sure you are right but I would argue that trying to quantify cognitive jobs is foolhardy and I am not convinced in the slightest that automation is capable of replacing them. Having said that, I have time and time again been surprised as to how ingenious human beings are with creating jobs! Industries no one ever thought of are now major industries. Humans are far more adaptable than horses. That's kind of our thing.
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I agree, that's why I support a system that benefits them the most, free market Capitalism and a government that does only what it should.
What if it were true that free market nor capitalism no longer benefit the poor, what do we do then? I think this can be argued since all markets are already regulated (thus not entirely free) nor is capitalism taken to its logical extreme anywhere in the world.
If that were true then we would switch to a better system. I don't think it is and I don't think there is one.
I don't know what capitalism's logical extreme is but if you are talking about anarchy then I am not for that. I believe government serves a very important role in capitalism. It enforces contracts (legal system), protects third parties (environmental hazards), and defends against foreign or domestic aggression (police, military).
This isn't to say capitalism is perfect! Of course not but it is better than every other conceived system and has proven so by bringing millions out of poverty.
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> Why hasn't the unemployment rate skyrocketed due to the automation in agriculture that allows us to produce more crops cheaper and with less people? Because the increase in labor and decrease in food costs allowed other industries to flourish! The unemployment rate is still high (~9%), and thats just people still looking who haven't given up yet. Labor force participation rate: https://i.imgur.com/v9sD9PB.png U-6:…
The unemployment rate would be closer to 50% if everyone that "should" be unemployed now were. We can argue about the recovery and other economic problems, I'm simply saying automation isn't a source for unemployment, maybe in the short term but definitely not in the long term.
https://medium.com/the-wtf-economy/machine-money-and-people-...
> An odd coalition of conservative, libertarian, and liberal intellectuals has advocated for Basic Income over the past 60 years. This, of course, is the (political) downfall of UBI. That coalition will stand together right up until someone has to draft an actual Senate bill implementing the thing. Then, the liberals want to phase out existing social programs gradually, or implement it as a more-palatable negative in…
It's worse than you think. Even if all politicians agreed on what they wanted for UBI today , there is no reason to believe it would remain that way for long. There are any number of reasons people would want to tinker with it in the future, and some of them will be valid and will deserve to be considered -- for example, should disabled people receive more money under UBI, because they have a higher cost of living du…
Your final paragraph actually brings to mind the famous Don't Rewrite Software essay. Specifically: "it's just a simple function... but it has grown little hairs and stuff on it and nobody knows why. Well, I'll tell you why: those are bug fixes."
I imagine that as UBI goes to the table, someone will point out that unreliable mothers will squander the money and fail to feed their kids, and so we'll replay the same arguments that created WIC. Someone else will point out that UBI doesn't save the suddenly-unemployed from defaulting on their payments, so for stability's sake we should have payments scaled by lost income, and we'll reinvent unemployment insurance. Etc.
Obviously the existing welfare program could be streamlined and improved, but you're exactly right that it exists as-is for a reason. All the little convolutions exist either to make it more politically viable, or to handle some objective more specific than "give money to the poor". That's not going to disappear because UBI looks pretty.
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You wrote, "Taking money from one person and giving it to another by force is wrong." You had an "especially" in there, so you think it particularly applies here, but you still said that statement is true generally. And UBI advocates generally say it benefits everyone. In fact, that's why they prefer it over other government programs! Because it goes to everyone! I get the policy disagreement on this, but that's stil…
> And UBI advocates generally say it benefits everyone. It benefits the poorer at the expense of the rich. >In fact, that's why they prefer it over other government programs! I would support the UBI as a replacement for the current welfare system but only as a replacement and only because it is less morally bankrupt and ineffective. Just to clarify, I don't support the UBI in general but if you're willing to complete…
A society should search to maximize utility. Let's make some numbers up. One starving person has a utility of 1. One not starving person has a utility of 10. One mega-ultra-rich person has a utility of 100. One ultra-rich person has a utility of 99.
If you take money from 1 mega-ultra-rich person and give it to 2 starving persons:
99-100 = -1
2*(10-1) = 18
+___
+17
> An odd coalition of conservative, libertarian, and liberal intellectuals has advocated for Basic Income over the past 60 years. This, of course, is the (political) downfall of UBI. That coalition will stand together right up until someone has to draft an actual Senate bill implementing the thing. Then, the liberals want to phase out existing social programs gradually, or implement it as a more-palatable negative in…
We need a word for this dynamic, which also surfaced in Brexit. You had the "dey turker jerbs" crowd, the sovereignty crowd, the free market crowd, and the racist crowd - and the only common element between them was "Brexit", rather than any kind of unified vision. And now we're stuck with an a priori decision with no idea how to go about implementing it in a sensible way. Cries of "shouldn't we have thought of this…
At least in the case of Brexit, the awful error was giving a simple up/down referendum. If the option to leave had been tied to a clear next step, it would have shattered the coalition and probably failed.
I'm not sure if you can regulate something like this, or if you just have to push the David Camerons of the world to not screw up so badly, but forcing people to put whole processes up at once would probably force a lot more movements to sort out whether they actually have any common ground.
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The unemployment rate would be closer to 50% if everyone that "should" be unemployed now were. We can argue about the recovery and other economic problems, I'm simply saying automation isn't a source for unemployment, maybe in the short term but definitely not in the long term.
And I'm disagreeing with you. Most of people's basic needs can be met with automation and clean energy, full stop. https://medium.com/the-wtf-economy/machine-money-and-people-...
Depends on what you consider basic needs doesn't it? If humans only consumed their basic needs than I agree, we should be scared of automation. The thing is as we become more prosperous, our basic needs are met and our other needs expand. Do you need a cell phone? Do you need a car? No, of course not, but people demand them, and other people supply them. The problem is that the automation people are making sweeping statements about all of our needs being supplied by automation. I don't think that's possible. I also don't think its wise to take advice from a Keynesian.
http://www.cato.org/blog/keynes-was-wrong-stimulus-keynesian...
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Everyone benefits from a strong middle class and not-too-poor class. Including you. Also I believe there is an argument to be made that more equal society is better for everyone involved.
I agree, that's why I support a system that benefits them the most, free market Capitalism and a government that does only what it should.
Wouldn't the market be freer if we slowly replaced that minimum wage with UBI (i.e. decrease minimum wage and increase UBI over time). The market would then be free to set prices more accurately because there would be a lower artificial price floor. This also helps create more jobs to offset the ones lost to automation, since people can afford to be paid less, a wider variety of jobs can be economically viable. Additionally, people would have more freedom in find jobs that they enjoy and are well suited for. All of this would increase economic efficiency.
Thus, yes, UBI could benefit everyone by making our labour market freer and more efficient. Basically, UBI is a form of economic infrastructure, and thus is a MORAL thing to spend taxes on.