I am fucking sick of Trump

[Sbee]

and your answer...Just pay them more.

Sure as hell beats externalizing the costs of labor on the American taxpayer.

 

[Sbee]

it's not anecdotal in the least. your "solutions" are proven failures yet you push for more and more of them.

if you reform welfare and our ridiculous tax code, bring back manufacturing jobs with high non-union wages, which you can do, just like at the auto industry in the southern states, you will drive all wages up because of the alternatives and higher wage demands w/o permanent subsidies. if you use regulation, taxes and subsidies, you create incentives for reallocation of capital.

and I don't laugh as I type this stuff, I do sometimes nearly piss my pants when I read your inane drivel though.

Still think eliminating the minimum wage would help the 29 year old making under $9 per hour?

 

[tomdalton22]

Sure as hell beats externalizing the costs of labor on the American taxpayer.

These people have no incentive to get better jobs when the government continues to give them their entitlements

 

[tigermud]

I saw a yard sign today that said "deplorables for trump" I had to laugh... that's funny.

 

[Spartanmack]

Sure as hell beats externalizing the costs of labor on the American taxpayer.

you don't think Americans taxpayers will be affected by a higher minimum wage? Public assistance costs rise when people can't get jobs and prices increase when wages are raised by artificial means. I know you hate to hear this, but government is the problem, not the answer. None of this works without majorly reforming our economy. Cut corporate taxes to the lowest in the world (personally, I think they should be eliminated) and watch how fast companies take advantage of the arbitrage by bringing back manufacturing jobs that pay good wages. That will create alternatives for low skill workers to become skilled workers and get better jobs and it will raise wages for low skilled workers as well. There will be people who need assistance no doubt, but the idea that being a cashier should be career that can sustain a family is absurd and making proprietors or even large corporations with big market caps (LOL) pay a living wage for every single job is ridiculous. That's not mean spirited or selfish, it's entirely rational and you're position isn't one of compassion, it's immoral collectivist tyranny.

 

[Spartanmack]

Still think eliminating the minimum wage would help the 29 year old making under $9 per hour?

Still asking dumb questions? I still think it's not any employer's obligation to pay the 29 year old more than his or her skills are worth.

 

[Sbee]

Still asking dumb questions? I still think it's not any employer's obligation to pay the 29 year old more than his or her skills are worth.

Ok, then you must be ok with the responsibility falling on the taxpayer to pick up the slack to allow this person to be clothed, fed, housed, and insured. You really can't have it both ways. Low skill manufacturing is not coming back, it's going to be automated as much as possible and when humans are necessary, they'll find the cheapest possible labor which will never be in the United States.

 

[Spartanmack]

Ok, then you must be ok with the responsibility falling on the taxpayer to pick up the slack to allow this person to be clothed, fed, housed, and insured. You really can't have it both ways. Low skill manufacturing is not coming back, it's going to be automated as much as possible and when humans are necessary, they'll find the cheapest possible labor which will never be in the United States.

pay attention - i'm not ok with the burden falling on the taxpayer. That's why, for the 3rd time in 2 days now, I'm for welfare and tax reform and rebuilding the American manufacturing sector and bringing back manufacturing jobs across the skill spectrum.

What do you think is going to happen to low skilled cashier jobs when the minimum goes to $15/hour everywhere? You'll be ordering your fast food from a kiosk and you'll be checking yourself out at the grocery store and all the big box outlets. You make the arguments for my policies yourself - unless you're next regulatory move would be to make it illegal to automate low skill jobs.

 

[Gulo Blue]

pay attention - i'm not ok with the burden falling on the taxpayer. That's why, for the 3rd time in 2 days now, I'm for welfare and tax reform and rebuilding the American manufacturing sector and bringing back manufacturing jobs across the skill spectrum.

Are you aware they're replacing manufacturing jobs with robots in China? Taking the tax all the way down to zero wouldn't make a US worker cheaper than someone overseas and we've on the verge of robots being cheaper than than, so how is tax reform ever going to bring those jobs back?

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601215/china-is-building-a-robot-army-of-model-workers/

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/25/11772222/foxconn-automation-robots-apple-samsung-smartphones

 

[Gulo Blue]

What do you think is going to happen to low skilled cashier jobs when the minimum goes to $15/hour everywhere? You'll be ordering your fast food from a kiosk and you'll be checking yourself out at the grocery store and all the big box outlets. You make the arguments for my policies yourself - unless you're next regulatory move would be to make it illegal to automate low skill jobs.

The cost of automation won't stop dropping at the 'fair wage' everyone is talking about anyway. It's just going to keep dropping. If you raise minimum wage above whatever automation costs, then we switch to automation now. If you don't raise minimum wage, you wait until the price of automation drops and those jobs disappear later. Either way, those jobs are going to disappear.

 

[Sbee]

pay attention - i'm not ok with the burden falling on the taxpayer. That's why, for the 3rd time in 2 days now, I'm for welfare and tax reform and rebuilding the American manufacturing sector and bringing back manufacturing jobs across the skill spectrum.

What do you think is going to happen to low skilled cashier jobs when the minimum goes to $15/hour everywhere? You'll be ordering your fast food from a kiosk and you'll be checking yourself out at the grocery store and all the big box outlets. You make the arguments for my policies yourself - unless you're next regulatory move would be to make it illegal to automate low skill jobs.

Gulo said basically what I was going to say. I understand that you say that you're not OK with the government subsidizing the working poor, but those low skill manufacturing jobs are not coming back.

also, corporations will replace employees with machines whenever possible, the wage doesn't really matter as long as the machine is cheaper long term. Blockbuster employees weren't demanding $15 an hour, but their jobs were eliminated by online streaming and redbox kiosks. Eliminating the minimum wage would simply accelerate the race to the bottom for wages, those making $9 are going to be competing with those willing to work for $7, and further down the line. It's an economic death spiral where we keep paying workers less and then produce cheaper goods but the increased margin keeps going to shareholders, increasing the gap between haves and have nots.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Don't get me wrong. I'm a big believer in free market capitalism and the superiority of an economy that relies on people working for their own motivations.

When I talk about 2 economies, it sounds socialist as hell, but I think it's the best way to preserve what's good about capitalism as we enter an age of mass automation and AI. There will always be scarcity for some things, at a minimum, land. And I think we need to do everything we can to preserve a capitalist system where the average citizen has more or less access to our scarce resources based on their contributions.

 

[Spartanmack]

Are you aware they're replacing manufacturing jobs with robots in China? Taking the tax all the way down to zero wouldn't make a US worker cheaper than someone overseas and we've on the verge of robots being cheaper than than, so how is tax reform ever going to bring those jobs back?

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601215/china-is-building-a-robot-army-of-model-workers/

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/25/11772222/foxconn-automation-robots-apple-samsung-smartphones

taking the tax down to zero doesn't need to make labor less expensive than someone overseas. It just 1 lever to pull to bring overall manufacturing costs down. Corporations don't seek to lower just one cost. I would fully expect American workers to be more expensive than their 3rd and developing world counterparts. The arbitrage comes from the overall cost of doing business, which includes everything (i.e. taxes, shipping, etc).

 

[Sbee]

Don't get me wrong. I'm a big believer in free market capitalism and the superiority of an economy that relies on people working for their own motivations.

When I talk about 2 economies, it sounds socialist as hell, but I think it's the best way to preserve what's good about capitalism as we enter an age of mass automation and AI. There will always be scarcity for some things, at a minimum, land. And I think we need to do everything we can to preserve a capitalist system where the average citizen has more or less access to our scarce resources based on their contributions.

I believe in capitalism as well but I believe in paying the true costs of goods and services, not the ones that contain a number of externalities. The future of the job market looks scary, there has to be some kind of paternalism and government intervention as jobs are automated, this will hit knowledge workers hard over the next 20 years as well. IBM's Watson is going to make a lot of tasks obsolete and we can't all be performing maintenance on the computers.

 

[tinselwolverine]

Don't get me wrong. I'm a big believer in free market capitalism and the superiority of an economy that relies on people working for their own motivations.

When I talk about 2 economies, it sounds socialist as hell, but I think it's the best way to preserve what's good about capitalism as we enter an age of mass automation and AI. There will always be scarcity for some things, at a minimum, land. And I think we need to do everything we can to preserve a capitalist system where the average citizen has more or less access to our scarce resources based on their contributions.

What's going to happen when all the crap that's needed gets produced with relatively few people required in the process of production?

 

[Spartanmack]

The cost of automation won't stop dropping at the 'fair wage' everyone is talking about anyway. It's just going to keep dropping. If you raise minimum wage above whatever automation costs, then we switch to automation now. If you don't raise minimum wage, you wait until the price of automation drops and those jobs disappear later. Either way, those jobs are going to disappear.

That's probably true, but it will be slower and there will be less incentive for employers to cut costs if they're getting the value they're getting is commensurate with the price they're paying. Automation doesn't come cheap either, and there's got to be a break even point where they're indifferent and above it, they seek alternatives and below it, they buy more until the price reaches the equilibrium point.

But even if you're right, the answer is not "well, the jobs could be gone soon anyway so let's drive up prices, force the most vulnerable out of the workforce and kill these jobs as fast as we can." I'd much rather have market forces determine the level of automation than have the government jack everything up by creating inefficiencies in resource allocation. The only thing that comes out of these ideas of sbee's is unemployment of unskilled workers and higher prices for consumers.

 

[Spartanmack]

I believe in capitalism as well but I believe in paying the true costs of goods and services, not the ones that contain a number of externalities. The future of the job market looks scary, there has to be some kind of paternalism and government intervention as jobs are automated, this will hit knowledge workers hard over the next 20 years as well. IBM's Watson is going to make a lot of tasks obsolete and we can't all be performing maintenance on the computers.

Oh my goodness - you are the one pushing policies that create the externalities. And you don't believe in capitalism because you don't know what capitalism is when you speak of paternalism and government intervention. That's what has screwed everything up in the first place.

 

[Michchamp]

Don't get me wrong. I'm a big believer in free market capitalism and the superiority of an economy that relies on people working for their own motivations.

When I talk about 2 economies, it sounds socialist as hell, but I think it's the best way to preserve what's good about capitalism as we enter an age of mass automation and AI. There will always be scarcity for some things, at a minimum, land. And I think we need to do everything we can to preserve a capitalist system where the average citizen has more or less access to our scarce resources based on their contributions.

I think these definitions need to be tweeked a bit to ensure we're all talking about the same thing. Free market capitalism is all well and good, but all too often nefarious, anti-competitive practices get lumped in with that definition. it takes government intervention in the markets to prevent those; and government intervention can also become used as an anti-competitive tool (eg lobbying to be excluded from regulations, protected from lawsuits, lobby for subsidies/corp welfare).

this idea that McDonald's (as an example) is operating in competitive markets when it lobbies to oppose wage and hour laws, engages in anti-unionization efforts, or fights tooth and nail to keep up the legal fiction that its franchisees are responsible for its corporate policies, not the corporate HQ... this idea is not true. and only a fool would apply simplistic Econ 101 rationale like "McDonald's employees are paid a fair market wage for their services, and if not, they can negotiate a better one, or quit and go work for someone else."

 

[Spartanmack]

Gulo said basically what I was going to say. I understand that you say that you're not OK with the government subsidizing the working poor, but those low skill manufacturing jobs are not coming back.

also, corporations will replace employees with machines whenever possible, the wage doesn't really matter as long as the machine is cheaper long term. Blockbuster employees weren't demanding $15 an hour, but their jobs were eliminated by online streaming and redbox kiosks. Eliminating the minimum wage would simply accelerate the race to the bottom for wages, those making $9 are going to be competing with those willing to work for $7, and further down the line. It's an economic death spiral where we keep paying workers less and then produce cheaper goods but the increased margin keeps going to shareholders, increasing the gap between haves and have nots.

It's ok that Blockbuster went out of business because of innovation - that makes people's lives better on the whole. Economies evolve, there's nothing you can do about that - but innovation also creates jobs in other areas. There is a transition and adjustment - and that's what social services should be about - TEMPORARY assistance, retraining workers for new skills, etc. Not guaranteeing every job in America affords a certain minimum lifestyle. That's a recipe for complete and total failure.

 

[Gulo Blue]

What's going to happen when all the crap that's needed gets produced with relatively few people required in the process of production?

Here's what I think will happen, long term.

I think we will see continued gradual expansion of various government plans as we are now, to cover up the lack of jobs. The go to example is disability coverage. The linked article talks about how the number of people on disability is skyrocketing in places where the job market has been gutted.

As these programs increase, so will government handouts with restrictions, like EBT cards, where you've got a form of currency that can only be spent on food. I think we'll have more credits out there, first for healthcare, then maybe low income housing. At some point it becomes too complicated and government handouts all get rolled into a single form of 'US credits' that are only good for cheap stuff. High end healthcare, the best doctors and the latest technology won't be included, but most general stuff will. Fancy restaurants are out, but plenty of stuff from the grocery store are in.

Of course there will be an exchange rate between government credits and real cash. There already is. The question is when will it become legal.

As the value of labor drops below survival wages, I think we'll see a dramatic increase in government handouts by necessity. I think we'll go with EBT-style credits before we go with a basic income, but who knows? At some point in the very distant future, I can see completely unproductive people being able to live entirely on government credits. From a material needs standpoint, they will be ok, but I don't think people will ever be happy with this type of life. Many will stay stoned or drunk as much as possible in an effort to tolerate it, but most people will still try to do whatever they can to earn real money that can be spent in the luxury economy.

None of that government credit stuff is absolutely necessary for the economy to split. I just think it will. We're already going down this path. I can go to a fast food place and get chicken nuggets for 10-20 cents each or I can go to the farmers market and pay $8/lb for chicken. Both are in business. I can go to WalMart and buy a hat for under $5 or go to the craft fair and get something made by hand by someone living at my own standard of living for $35. If you mostly live on government subsidy, you've mostly got to stick to WalMart. The person making $35 hats for the craft fair could never survive on the money from that enterprise. It's just a way to participate in the luxury economy and supplement whatever does keep that person fed and housed. If you're really successful at providing people with luxury goods or fulfilling government contracts to produce things for the subsidized economy, you'll have the wealth for $35 hats and a desirable home and such. But tons and tons of people won't have much to bring to the table in this economy, and even with handouts, I don't know how society will evolve with such a large, unfulfilled population with free time on their hands. Lots of internet trolling, I guess.