58% of the bottom quintile rise out of it in their lifetimes.
61% of the top quintile decline from it in their lifetimes.
That's a tremendous amount of economic mobility both up and down!
Posted on 12/10/2012 10:48:27 AM PST by ksen
Dean Baker responds to inconsistent worries about robots displacing labor and the ability of a smaller number of workers per retiree to support Social Security:
... we seem to be seeing rapid improvements in productivity growth ... that are drastically reducing the demand for labor. Yet all the gains from these improvements seem to be going to owners of capital as the labor share of output has been falling sharply.
The distributional issue ... is extremely important, both for workers who are not seeing gains in living standards, and also for the economy as a whole, since a continual upward redistribution of income will lead to stagnation as a result of inadequate demand. However, it is worth noting that the concern that rapid productivity growth will lead to less demand for labor is 180 degrees at odds with the often repeated concern that productivity growth will be inadequate to sustain rising living standards in the future.
... If you are concerned that a falling ratio of workers to retirees is going to make us poor then you are not concerned that excessive productivity growth will leave tens of millions without jobs.
It is possible for too much productivity growth to be a problem, if the gains are not broadly shared. It is also possible for too little productivity growth to be a problem as a growing population of retirees impose increasing demands on the economy. But, it is not possible for both to simultaneously be problems. ...
I'm not worried about low productivity growth and stagnation. Since we are in the midst of it, it's hard to see the full impact of the digital revolution, but I believe it's a bigger force for productivity growth than we realize. There are big changes in our future as robots/machines become better and better at displacing people. However, that growth will be more unequal than ever, and it's the distribution of the gains from growth that I worry about.
In the future, we'll have the ability to produce enough stuff, and that ability won't stop growing. The problem will be distribution, and our inherently selfish nature makes it an extremely difficult problem to solve.
I would love to see some data backing this assertion up.
I don’t have the answer to that question. But I suspect you are being disingenuous when you ask, “What does society do?”
What you probably really mean is, “What should the government do?”
My point is that the problem is at root one of a needed place in society, not just one of funds. And if productivity increases via automation remove the need for workers, there isn’t anything the government (or possibly society) can do about it.
The government can certainly tax “the rich” more and give more money to the poor, but they still know they are redundant. It can provide make-work jobs, but everybody will know that is exactly what they are.
And under 0bama, they will NEVER come back. Killing the goose that laid the golden egg (Capitalism) will result in legions of un- and under-employed.
To be fair, Bush reacted exactly wrongly to the housing crisis too. But he only had about 4-5 months of screwing things up. 0bama's good for a full 8. Run for your lives! The economic damage is unimaginable.
How about even higher in importance “Thou shall not steal” ?
58% of the bottom quintile rise out of it in their lifetimes.
61% of the top quintile decline from it in their lifetimes.
That's a tremendous amount of economic mobility both up and down!
What you probably really mean is, “What should the government do?”
Well when the non-government portion of society fails what is left to pick up the slack?
My point is that the problem is at root one of a needed place in society, not just one of funds. And if productivity increases via automation remove the need for workers, there isn’t anything the government (or possibly society) can do about it.
If that's the case then guillotine manufacturers may become a growth industry.
The government can certainly tax “the rich” more and give more money to the poor, but they still know they are redundant. It can provide make-work jobs, but everybody will know that is exactly what they are.
Have you ever done any reading on the concept of "Predistribution"?
There's no reason they can't come back under Obama since corporations have done better under Obama than they have done in a long time.
Well, you can't say that anymore!
Don’t change the subject. The subject was jobs. You were just whining about the poor employment prospects and earnings. I agree. They suck. Under 0bama.
Corporatists achieve all sorts of excellent outcomes when government control is exercised; they capture their regulators and use that power to exclude competitors.
Re-Distribution Communism File.
Wouldn’t you be more comfortable on DU?
It's not changing the subject. Most of the time corporations/businesses will keep hiring/wages down because their profits are being squeezed. That isn't the case currently. Profits are through the roof, corps are sitting on record piles of cash, and yet businesses don't seem to be hiring. That sounds to me like a failing on the part of business rather than a failing on the part of Obama.
Won't work. By definition 50% of the population is of below-average IQ. This is the group that is largely and increasingly irrelevant to the economy.
A bus driver with IQ 90 is of "average intelligence," but if he loses his job to the computer programs now being developed, he is not going to be retrained to write apps for the iPhone.
Predistribution is just a way of requiring government to get even more deeply involved in the everyday running of every business.
Government is terrible at running businesses.
Your claim was after 30 years “the poor” become “the rich.”
The table you provided as evidence doesn’t back up your claim. Unless you are claiming that going from the first quintile to the second quintile equates to “becoming rich.”
Besides, it’s not about making sure everyone is rich. It’s about making sure everyone has a chance to become successful, not guaranteeing success.
1) 0bamaCare puts huge risk into hiring.
2) U.S. tax rates are the highest in the developed world. We ship jobs overseas rather than develop them here.
3) Because the tax rates here are so high, corporations keep cash offshore to avoid those tax rates. That cash hoard could be deployed to create jobs; but no corporation would be stupid enough to repatriate that cash under these tax rates. So it sits idle.
4) 0bama's regulatory juggernaut is just warming up. There's no reason to create a job that will be uneconomic tomorrow.
You claim that the bottom 90% never get ahead. The graph above proves you wrong. Accept that fact.
Post #21 does a pretty good job with data making the point I was making from memory. MANY people have GREAT economic mobility in the U.S. I’ll stick with post #21’s data rather than my rusty memory.
Have you admitted this fact?
Have you admitted that Americans of every quintile are better off than they were in the 1960s?
Unless you are going to argue that as the “lower IQ workers” get pushed out of the system they should just be cut off then I’m not sure what the point of your posts are. You say there’s no hope for people put out of work by technology and government shouldn’t do anything to help them out. Are you wanting to just see these people left to die out in the wilderness like so many Spartan babies?
What’s with this ksen guy? How has he lived here so long, being pro-commie?
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