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As Robots Eat Our Jobs, Fed Should 'Drop the Money From Helicopters,' Says Bill Gross (janus.com)
As technology continues to change the world -- and kill many jobs -- it may soon change the very nature of what is considered work, said Bill Gross, a renowned American financial manager in his recently released investment outlook. Gross says that in a year or so we will need to start guaranteeing income for everyone. Gross, added that the current crop of national leaders is hopelessly behind the curve, leaving it to central bankers to fix the mess. "Our economy has changed, but voters and their elected representatives don't seem to know what's really wrong," he writes. "They shout: (1) build a wall, (2) balance the budget, (3) foot the bill for college, or (4) make free trade less free. "That will fix it" they discordantly proclaim, and after November's election some unlucky soul may do one or more of the above in an effort to make things better. Similar battles are being fought everywhere." The Sydney Morning Herald reports: Central bank "helicopter money" will avoid a long recession that looms as millions of millennials face losing their jobs to robot technology, Gross says. In news that is sure to depress anyone under the age of 30, Gross says that while presidential hopefuls in the US spout mantras about how they are going to spur growth, none are addressing the reality of the future: that robots and technology are going to render "millions" of jobs redundant. "Virtually every industry in existence is likely to become less labour-intensive in future years as new technology is assimilated into existing business models," Gross writes. Transport is a visible example of this transition and millions of truck and taxi drivers will be out of a job in the next 10 to 15 years due to driverless vehicles, he says. "We should spend money where it's needed most -- our collapsing infrastructure for instance, health care for an aging generation and perhaps on a revolutionary new idea called UBI -- Universal Basic Income."
Spilled my drink once I got to "leaving it to central bankers to fix the mess".... Smells like another scam
True enough -- if you think of it as welfare. But if you think of it as a transition to an economy of plenty, then it makes sense. But who wants to think, anyway? Fear is easier.
The simple solution is to move to a 20 hour work week.
But it'll never happen.
40 hours is enough to enslave us. 20 will let us explore on our own free will and surely will cause trouble for the illuminati.
I'm constantly amazed by the fact that americans are all pretty happy to acknowledge that their status quo rather bad, yet they are not willing to look for the reasons nor even talk about changing any aspect of the system.
It must be quite a feat of mental gymnastics to demand that everything somehow change for the better while everything remains the same. A three year old might find this idea reasonable, but grown men and women? Come on, this is a textbook definition of an idiot - someone who does the same thing over and over again expecting the results to differ.
As an outsider, it seems to me that most of what americans believe about politics, society and the human nature is rather a twisted picture indeed. Accepting the problem is the first step towards a solution, and luckily, usually the hardest. Yet the steps must be taken, otherwise things will only get worse.
FCKGW 09F9 42
Analysts have been puzzled why inflation has been so low, compared to a typical recovery.
First of all, I think you're talking about prices, not inflation. Inflation has been very high during the Bernanke and Yellen regimes, but for the most part that shit is propping up wall street. Secondly, consumer prices are rising, but the government lies about it by picking and choosing what products and services they include in their Potemkin Price Index.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
But everyone is missing the bigger problem.
Once there are no jobs, because everything is being done by robots and/or artificial intelligence, all of these companies who have no employees will have no one to sell their products to because no one will have any money to buy them.
This isn't hardly news. It happened in the 80's when Auto manufacturers began putting bots on the assembly lines.
Everyone adjusted and there wasn't a 'basic income' needed.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
they are not willing to look for the reasons
The reasons are obvious, and generally acknowledged. They are:
1. Technology
2. Globalisation
3. Regressive taxes
nor even talk about changing any aspect of the system.
Everybody talks about changing the system. The problem is that they disagree on the solution.
If you have evidence of a conspiracy to manipulate the CPI, please present it. Conspiracy theories are a dime a dozen.
I know there are philosophical differences about the computation techniques, but that's not necessarily a concerted plot to manipulate the political system.
And several metrics are provided to emphasize different things. Those who present the metrics do not force anyone to use one metric over another. The press typically has settled on one metric that has proven "good enough" over time. There are trade-offs between each as a de-facto standard.
Similar situation for unemployment rate.
Table-ized A.I.
The Fed helicopters don't fly over normal people. They only have the ability to dump money on banks via mechanisms such as rates so low that the banks can arbitrage. None of that money goes where it's needed to stimulate the economy.
AFAIK, only Congressional helicopters could deliver money to you and I, like they did with the stimulus checks a few years ago. It's almost certainly a fool's errand anyway, since it would screw up the dollar economy via runaway inflation if you did it too much.
IMHO, it would be better to simply extend services like food stamps and housing subsidies to people who would usually be in higher income brackets. Particular sectors of the economy might be weakened, but you wouldn't destroy the monetary system wholesale. People who wanted something better than government cheese would still be encouraged to innovate, strive, and keep progress and productivity humming.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Me, I'd already be happy if they sit on their ass in front of the TV stuffing their fat gut with more potatoe chips instead of ramming a knife into my belly for the 20 bucks in my wallet.
It may not be productive that they waste their life in front of the TV, but at least they're wasting their life and not mine, and let me be productive.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think Mr. Gross should look up the definition of hyperinflation. Sure, you can have free money, but you'll need a wheelbarrow full of it to buy groceries.
No, the reasons are foundational and so deeply ingrained that Americans can't see them. It's policies like:
In the land of opportunity, one can lift oneself by one's own bootstraps
Rich people/corporations must be rewarded for being 'job creators'
Corporations have more rights than people
Privatization can fix government/poverty
Socialism is evil
When middle-class America stops enforcing those lies, then agreement will be much closer.
It's not really disagreeing with a solution - there's only been one solution put forward that I've even seen.
There is a very obvious problem of mass unemployment and automation, which is being soundly ignored by a lot of people. Most just flat out refuse to believe it's happening (There will ALWAYS be more jobs!), others accept it but want everyone to suffer (If you can't feed yourself and find a job, fuck you go starve to death).
If people don't like the idea of a guaranteed basic income, then I encourage them to come up with alternative solutions to mass unemployment due to automation, rather than just sitting back and criticizing every single proposed solution and doing nothing to actually contribute.
I'm not married to this GBI concept, but if there's nothing better to solve our economic situation, then I'm sorry but that's exactly what I'm going to vote for and support.
You point to regressive taxes as the reason for Globalization being "abused" but you are overlooking the much larger problem of wage shopping. If you can have a product made for 1/10th the wages and shipped to your country through a plethora of trade agreements that make the shipping as fast and cheap as possible then that's what is going to happen. There is also the differences in labor laws. Steve Jobs once said one of the reasons Apple manufactures in China is they can make a change in their product lines and overnight Foxconn will have every one of their million or so employees working 12 hour shifts servicing that change.
Foxconn's employees live in barracks and they can pull in prisoners and students if they need to and work them as many hours as they want. There's no way that would ever happen in a modern Western nation unless our economy went seriously downhill.
How about dropping Boomers into the volcanoes? That'd at least open up a lot of management positions from old farts who can't let go and spread some of that stockpiled wealth around. Boomers generally caused all of the problems we're dealing with now as it is. Greediest most self centered generation the US has ever created.
You don't quite get it; capitalism is not idiotic, it's intelligence neutral. It's also morally neutral, it's amoral. Which means we need a system of morality to go along with it. True capitalism is not a system, it's the lack of a system.
We don't believe in radical loony monotheistic religions from the middle east -- we're Christians.
Capitalism's amorality is why we need a strong mediator (such as an uncorrupted democratic government) to mediate between the capitalist and the people.
But everyone is missing the bigger problem.
Once there are no jobs, because everything is being done by robots and/or artificial intelligence, all of these companies who have no employees will have no one to sell their products to because no one will have any money to buy them.
Nonsense. We are just moving back to the way it used to be where one family had a plantation and had 20 servants and 300 slaves. Even if we're lucky and the computers are the slaves, the servants still make 1/40 what the plantation owners make. That's the service industry that we're moving to where the lucky few have great paying jobs and the rest are barely surviving. There are plenty of places like this around the world, here in the USA we are used to the difference between the rich and the poor generally being less than 1 order of magnitude ($8/hour to $80/hour) but more and more of the wealth is starting to go to the people outside of this range.
It will, as a plus, create a bit of inflation that would actually reward folks who save money.
Uh, what? That's not what inflation does. In fact, it does the exact opposite. Inflation decreases the value of hoarded cash. It punishes people who save money. That's OK, because we really need them to invest that money, so a steady, fixed and predictable rate of inflation is actually desirable. The problem with inflation, of course, is that the minimum wage hasn't kept up with inflation in over twenty years. Without a congress willing to increase the minimum wage regularly to match inflation, the poor are punished for existing.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Better to spend $50,000/yr/person to keep people in PRISON than $30,000 for education. (or just to keep 'em out of trouble)
Of course, you'd have to stop putting people in cages for things that aren't crimes, like smoking dope.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Why would the US do better with socialism than say Venezuela, Cuba or North Korea? And before you say Nordic States, remember those are all capitalistic market economies.
No one is suggesting the US not be a capitalistic market economy. What they are suggesting is that the government step in to address the shortcomings of capitalism; to do the things that need to be done when there is no immediate profit to be made.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Giving a dollar to a homeless guy of your own will is charity. The government taking four dollars from you at gunpoint and giving the homeless dude one of them is socialism.
And nobody giving anything to the homeless guy is reality.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.