Posted on 09/09/2014 11:43:55 AM PDT by DannyTN
The politics of a guaranteed income get a lot easier when you acknowledge that the U.S. is no longer the land of opportunity
...
However, there are other trends that may be interacting with and exacerbating this original sin. Automation and globalization had already largely hollowed out America's manufacturing employment base; most jobs created during this "recovery" have been in crappy low-wage work. And when one takes automation to its obvious logical end, it's hard not to conclude that robots will soon be putting just about everyone out of a job.
... As someone with a nice, stimulating job, I agree that work can help people flourish. But in an economy that is flatly failing to produce enough jobs to satisfy the need, a universal basic income will start to seem more plausible — even necessary.
(Excerpt) Read more at theweek.com ...
Robotics and Artificial Intelligence may eventually cause enough labor dislocations that we have to resort to something like this. But right now, that automation is going to be occurring overseas. We won't even have a tax basis.
And you need a strong tax basis to give a guaranteed income. No income is guaranteed if wealth isn't generated here.
America running out of jobs?!
Hasn’t this author listened to any of O’s numerous speeches about how wonderfully he’s restored our economy?
And his labor department issues official statistics every week showing almost Zero unemployment...
It has become comical to read some of the things that are lofted to fix things these days.
We will get jobs back when we put the ruling class in prison.
Plenty of jobs here, don’t know what yo’all are talking about:
http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=&l=76208
http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=&l=75221
http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=&l=76102
It’s sad to read the naysayers who say we can’t do anytyhing about it. Or that we somehow could cut taxes enough to make a difference against coutries with people making 1/10th what we make.
Seriously, does anyone think a "guaranteed income" wouldn't become a price index baseline replacing zero?
Universal Basic Income
How about you either work, pay taxes, and have kids, or you play, receive benefits, and be sterilized?
No. We’ll get those jobs back when we go to war with China, and the high seas are so fragile, we can’t build up another global threat by making the same treasonous moves with another nation.
Because universal basic health care is working out so well.
Yes, Mr. Cooper, and if minimum wage is set at $1,000,000 per hour, we can all be as rich as Bill Gates.
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And now back to reality:
From an economic standpoint, the amount at which the “guaranteed minimum income” is set becomes the new zero.
No, you just print more money, silly!
I read about something called “feminist economics” where more money is magically produced with mouse clicks. Kind of like unicorns that crap Skittles.
This article doesn’t do the idea any good.
A guaranteed minimum income has its merits.
Right now we not only pay people to do nothing, but we pay an immense army of gov’t union people to be caretakers of them, administering program after programs supposedly to help the less fortunate.
Simply paying the people directly as the ONLY form of assistance would eliminate all these bureaucrats. Maybe some of them could devote their talents to useful work.
A socialist citing Marx - who’d a thunk it? BTT
It’s not yet time for a GAI. As long as someone else has to work to provide an income for you it’s simply not fair! It turns you into a slave.
I just posted the following on another thread..seems a good fit for this one as well.
By 2050 there won’t be any light manufacturing anywhere.
Small items will be made right in the home using a desktop assembler, imagine a very, very advanced 3D printer able to make everything from medicine and tools to the family dinner.
The age of automation will be in full swing.
Most nations will have a guaranteed annual income... no, not welfare. It will be one of the results of full automation.
It actually will be the beginnings of an age where money does grow on trees, so to speak.
Socialists will hate it because advanced automation means people won’t need government to take care of themselves.
2050 will be nothing like 2014.
Nearly everything will be made by automated machines. Houses, cars, aircraft, toys, general electronics, food, roads, clothes... All at nearly zero cost. Almost everything will be disposable. Two things will be in demand..raw materials and energy. Raw materials will be harvested and processed automatically. Unless there is a fusion energy breakthrough then manufacturing will run on solar. I know many scoff at solar but solar gets cheaper every day and it will become a LOT cheaper than fossil fuel energy in a few decades.
There will be almost no low-skill or manual labor jobs.
It is all inevitable.
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Basically paid for by the machines. It’s an alien concept because we have never had such capabilities before. You can certainly see the beginnings of it now and it will scale up very quickly.
Now we have people working, paying taxes, and using their income to buy manufactured goods. In a few decades it will no longer be people working, it will be mostly machines. Now people pay taxes, with automation it will be the machines that pay taxes, in a sense. That is where the guaranteed income comes from.
It is hard to get your head around but it is inevitable so we will have to make it work.
Someday there actually will be a free lunch. Computer controlled automatons will be like slaves who never tire. They will both construct and drive our cars. They will build and clean our houses. They will grow, harvest and prepare our meals. They will repair our bodies at a cellular level.
Technological advancement is no longer linear. There will be a FAR greater advancement in technology between now and 2050 than there was between the time of Christ and now.
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