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 ...
HG wells wrote "First Man on the Moon" in 1901.
50 years later, we were only 8 years away from the first man on the moon.
No doubt. But menial work will go first. Skilled labor like construction and such will take longer because of logistics and scale and customization.
The only reason that most cash register jobs have not been replaced already is inertia. But when your smartphone allows you to scan everything you wish to purchase and check out without talking to a single person those jobs will vanish, never to be back.
There will be a few big guys standing at the doors ready to spring if an alarm goes off and warehouse bots will restock the shelves constantly. This tech is already here and can be implemented without much work.
The guys screaming about bringing jobs back to America are in for a rude awakening because they are coming back and Rosie the Robot will be doing them all.
I cannot say I am not stunned to see freepers advocating socialism
Sounds like a utopia. If I live to see 2050, I’ll be highly surprised if the situation is anything like what you describe, however. Never mind defying what we understand about economics (which honestly isn’t very much, really), it defies everything that I understand about human nature.
So, who is buying the machines???
Your example is just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve been job hunting for about two years and have learned about at least a dozen different scams based on recruiting websites and companies. Posting a resume is like waving around a steak near the lion’s den.
The fact is, it’s nearly impossible to find a real job through websites like Indeed, SimplyHired, Monster, etc. because they are a target-rich environment for recruiting scams that exploit desperate job seekers who post resumes hoping to land anything they can get.
The only real chance is to hook up with a few different local agencies in your area (those that haven’t been quietly bought out by foreign agencies, and who don’t have a branch office overseas) and then hope you can swim upstream against the flood of H1B applicants who are really just economic refugees from their own failed countries.
Stock room could be under the store, with enough space between the shelves for a robot to pop-up and stock the shelf without ever getting in the way of a customer.
Predicting the future is impossible, seeing trends is not.
There are many jobs that can be done better and cheaper with robots, and maybe they should be.
From where? Can Jack Lew eat paper and pewp cash?
Like I said, there are numerous things to consider. We do not live in a society that will tolerate people starving in the streets. Especially the elderly and infirm.
We spend a lot of money trying to administer gov’t “charity” for these types of people. Yes, you get more of what you subsidize.
That is a compelling argument for ending all assistance.
But, are we really ready to do that? Is private charity ready to jump in and make sure that everyone who is truly needy gets cared for?
I don’t know the answers to that.
I do know that cutting out middlemen and providing direct assistance universally would be a lot simpler and efficient.
Any guaranteed income would need to be just barely sufficient. Work should pay and make a difference to peoples’ lives.
Make your own way in this world or die!
I’m not wiling to provide one cent to the non working leaches!
The H1B visa thing is being heavily abused by corporations, pretty soon they’ll be used for grocery store checkers.
If you want to be really scared about the coming job market watch this video. (There are some points I think are bordering on wishful thinking but it still has some valid stuff in it.)
“No. It’s time for open source equipment development and abolition of all regulations against owner-built houses and tiny manufacturing operations anywhere.”
I’ll get totally flamed for this ... but one guy who used to understand all that was Jerry Brown, yes Governor Moonbeam. But when he ran against Clinton in 1992 his debate points were very clear about the relationship between the three E’s:
- Energy
- Economy
- Environment
Jerry Brown had a very solid theory that keeping those three in balance by adjusting one or two as needed, would ensure constant sustainable growth. For example he wasn’t averse to environmental deregulation when it stood in the way of energy production and economic growth.
I think his formula still makes sense, even if he doesn’t.
Do you mean decay or stagnation?
What you described is Socialism
That is exactly what I am describing, and it is exactly where technology will put us within a generation.
It's already happening all around us.
The other day my washing machine broke. I called repair, and they wanted $100 to come and look at it.
My brother says look up the problem on the net, and next thing you know I find out what part is broken, located where to buy the part online, and find a video how to install it.
It won't be long before I won't even have to go through those steps. My washing machine will know what part fails and order it online itself, it will be delivered by drone (truck driver out of job, truck mechanics soon follow, gas stations sell less fuel, fewer stations needed), the part will have a strip on it that communicates to my smartphone the link to online installation video, and repair business goes belly up.
And the accountants and lawyers and suppliers of business products lose a client or customer, they get squeezed. Eventually they're replaced anyway by artificial intelligence, etc.
But I do not believe the process is inevitable.
And though it may be dangerous to bring this process under control by some kind of legislation, not doing anything about it will not just be dangerous, but will be a disaster.
Liberal policies are driving good paying manufacturing jobs out of the country and replacing them with minimum wage jobs. Liberals believe that all they have to do to replace them is to raise the minimum wage.
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