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."

Comments

maybe the Fed

[turkeydance]

is just a bunch of robots. SKYNET drops the money as human bait.

Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[Greyfox]

Hooray! I'm in my mid 40's and if I'm lucky I'll die of ass cancer in the next 5-10 years! Sucks to be the millenials, their future is much less bright!

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[rmdingler]

FTA: While socialist in theory, Gross says the idea has support among more conservatives than liberals and is the rage in Silicon Valley – how else will a shrinking workforce pay for the latest gadget?

The article is only suggesting $10,000 as a basic yearly income, so it's not like the living will be large without some income augmentation.

It will, as a plus, create a bit of inflation that would actually reward folks who save money.

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[Hylandr]

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.

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[Opportunist]

That problem is already here. The economy immediately tanked as soon as spending became impossible for the majority of people in the US. We are essentially repeating the 1930s. People lose their jobs, have no money to buy stuff, which in turn means companies can't sell their products, which closes companies, which makes people lose their jobs.

Back then what the government did was to create huge projects like the Hoover Dam to employ people and restart the economy. But I doubt that's possible today. First, because there isn't any funds left after we had to prop up the banks and second, politicians aren't as much in control of the country as they were in the 1930s. And corporations have no interest in such projects, since they'd have to foot the bill.

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[Opportunist]

If by "adjusted" you mean "accepted wages low enough to make robots unattractive because they have to be bought while you can simply dump a human after you're done using it, and there's no maintenance cost for humans since they're easier to replace" then yes.

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[Wycliffe]

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.

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[ceoyoyo]

Many times we've had automation kill off labour jobs. Our economies used to be virtually all primary production. Now they're 70%+ service. Whenever technology obsoleted labour jobs, people switched into white collar work. Now technology is coming for the white collar jobs. We can continue to play the "must have work" game as we've done in the past by doubling down on paying people to do useless things, or we can actually embrace the freedom that having machines do our work gives us.

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[calexontheroad66]

Slashdot should have made Depressive mod points

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Boomer spotted.

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[AmiMoJo]

The problem is always envy. Why should they get to watch TV all day when I have to work hard for my money?

I like the basic income idea because people can still work to supplement it, but at a reduced rate. I like being served by a human being in a shop, rather than the self service checkout, and if a couple of people could share that job doing say 16 hours a week each to supplement their basic income and live a reasonably comfortable life on it, that would be great.

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[drinkypoo]

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.

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[GameboyRMH]

I don't see how it would create inflation, that idea doesn't mesh with any existing theories of how inflation works. In fact, that's the "rising tide causes inflation" argument often used by opponents of UBI and minimum wage increases.

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[pnutjam]

Pick up "Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s", by Frederick Lewis Allen. The ebook is on Gutenburg Australia. It's an eye opening read, amazing to see how much history just gets repeated.
All his books are good, I can't recommend them enough. My entire working life, started in 2001 has seemed like a slow motion replay of the 1920's.

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[luis_a_espinal]

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.

Different conditions. Automation booted a lot of workers (not to mention the auto industry was getting a pummeling from the Japanese and German auto makers.) And currently the "traditional" auto makers in the rust belt are getting a pummeling by factories in Mexico and foreign manufactures setting up shop in at-will states in the south.

But here is the big difference between then and now/the near future: job decimation wasn't widespread then. People simply went to work somewhere else. Some with better wages than others.

Globalization changed that. All of the sudden jobs everywhere vanished. If you had nothing in to offer in terms of skill over a worker in Shenzhen, Bangalore or Panang, your job will go there. There is no right or wrong to this. It simply is.

And now we have robotics doing an actual credible job of replacing a shitload of jobs. Australians are seriously exploring to use agricultural robots en masse. The Japanese are for the first time pushing robots to replace millions of jobs (but, unlike us, are considering the social consequences of it, and planning for it.)

That is the difference. And if we do not plan for it, we are going to have with millions of people with nothing to do.

We had a similar prospect right out of WWII, and the solution was the GI Bill, the largest welfare program ever. And it single handle created the middle class and provided with technical education, opportunity, entrepreneurship and employment.

It was a tool that was great for that problem in that context, at that time.

We need to pull a magic rabbit, and fast, for the type of problems that we are about to face.

Re:Yeah, Everyone Under Thirty

[drinkypoo]

The poor people are punished for not educating themselves.

Oh yeah?

In the US, if all you have learned to say is "Would you like fries with that?",

That's all you'll need, because that's about the only kind of job available.

I for one have done well with just a high school education as well as some of my friends with only a high school education. I also have one friend that did not complete high school but is worth more than a million dollars and made that wealth all by himself. Someone like him is rare but can be done.

Hard work is the worst predictor of success in America. For every person who got successful through hard work, there are thousands who tried and failed. The best predictor is the social status of your parents.

Pop goes the bubble

[Anonymous Coward]

Spilled my drink once I got to "leaving it to central bankers to fix the mess".... Smells like another scam

Bill Gross

[110010001000]

Bill Gross is a con artist and part of the 0.000001% and made billions through junk bonds. Don't trust anything he says.

Re:Bill Gross

[JoeyRox]

You have BIll Gross confused with someone else, perhaps Michael Milken. Gross doesn't issue junk bonds like many of con artists of the past - he invests in them, along with lots of investment grade and government bonds as well. He became wealthy by having an uncanny ability to predict where the economy (and in turn the bond market) will go during his 30+ year career.

Re:Bill Gross

[JoeyRox]

Then describe why you believe Bill Gross is a con artist. He's the most respected bond investor of his generation.

Better idea

[rossdee]

Dropping condoms from helicopters would seem to be more effective.

Re:Better idea

[Daemonik]

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.

Re: the sky is falling

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Capacity is growing faster than money supply

[Tablizer]

Analysts have been puzzled why inflation has been so low, compared to a typical recovery. Economies typically do best at roughly around 2.2 to 2.5 percent inflation per year. But we've been hovering around 1.7%.

It appears our GDP capability is expending due to automation and outsourcing, yet our money supply is not expending to match. Thus, we have too many idle people and factories.

"Printing money" is one way to make them match. You don't risk runaway inflation if the capacity to produce is expending.

Many dictatorships and non-democracies willingly subsidize the cost of their nation's labor because unemployed people riot and overthrow dictatorships. Thus, they keep their population busy and fed using various gimmicks to under-price their nation's labor (relative to consumption). Therefore, they are practically giving away free labor to protect their position of power.

Robots and de-facto slaves are available to make more stuff, if only the money supply is freed up to allow them.

(The morality of such de-facto slavery is perhaps an issue to be dealt with, but for here I'm focusing on just the economy and money supply.)

Re:Capacity is growing faster than money supply

[Tablizer]

Corrections and clarifications:

"Expending" should have been "expanding".

Robots and de-facto slaves are available to make more stuff, if only the money supply is freed up to allow them.

Citizens of democracies are also available, and willing to participate.

And "freed up" perhaps should also be "expanded". QE freed up the money supply but didn't really expand it in general. QE mostly just exchanged low-liquid assets for higher-liquid assets.

Re:Capacity is growing faster than money supply

[jcr]

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

Re:Capacity is growing faster than money supply

[Tablizer]

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.

Re:Capacity is growing faster than money supply

[Tablizer]

There's nothing in there to indicate a conspiracy.

It is true that before the recent China slump that food and raw materials spiked up per inflation, but it was largely because Asia is (was?) expanding economically and demanding more raw materials and a larger variety of food products.

BUT, there is still slack in manufactured goods and services.

Re:Capacity is growing faster than money supply

[sjames]

Because it didn't end up in the hands of the 99% of the population who (collectively) do most of the spending. Prices on non-essential goods cannot rise if most of the population would be priced out of the market.

Re:Capacity is growing faster than money supply

[ultranova]

That doesn't seem like it is the cause of money velocity falling.

Money velocity = "the number of times one unit of money is spent to buy goods and services per unit of time." If you increase the amount of units of money in existence, but the amount that gets spent to buy goods and services stays the same, then average money velocity falls.

In other words, trickle down is bullshit and thus any economic stimulus based on it can only succeed through accident. You need to get the money in the hands of your local hobo, because he'll carry it straight to the local liqueur store which can thus pay its employees and suppliers, not hoard it in offshore tax havens.

Re:Capacity is growing faster than money supply

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that an independently run price index agrees with the government figures. See the Billion Prices Project, run from MIT.

Re:Capacity is growing faster than money supply

[phantomfive]

MV = PQ is the equation, where PQ is the price of everything, and M is the total amount of money, and V is the velocity of money. This equation, besides making sense intuitively, has also been verified by quite a bit of empirical evidence.

In general, people who save money don't put it in a hole in the ground or wait for it to rot, they invest it, meaning thy give the money to someone who will spend it on things. So, being a rich saver doesn't necessarily reduce money velocity, and can actually increase it. Furthermore, it may be that poor people didn't spend as much because they lost their jobs, but the increase in money supply seems large enough to cover that and still cause inflation. Furthermore, previously (throughout history) when the money supply was increased, it caused inflation ~1.5 years later, almost automatically. This relationship held true when unemployment was high or low.

So those are my reasons for thinking it's probably not the cause of money velocity falling.

Re:Capacity is growing faster than money supply

[NoImNotNineVolt]

In general, people who save money don't put it in a hole in the ground or wait for it to rot, they invest it, meaning thy give the money to someone who will spend it on things.

Indeed, I could've been more careful with my words. However, in general, investment isn't considered consumption, and that's the distinction I was trying to make.

Also worth pointing out here is that the velocity of money has to do with the rate at which money is spent, and based on my understanding of these things, velocity of money is faster at the poorer end of the economy than it is at the wealthier end, so the fact that invested capital exists within the economy doesn't seem particularly insightful.

So, being a rich saver doesn't necessarily reduce money velocity, and can actually increase it.

Indeed. And it doesn't necessarily increase the velocity of money, and can actually decrease it. These lines of reasoning don't seem to lead us anywhere conclusive.

Furthermore, it may be that poor people didn't spend as much because they lost their jobs, but the increase in money supply seems large enough to cover that and still cause inflation.

Could you clarify this point? More specifically, can you clarify how this hypothesis supports your original claim? Also, how do you quantify any of this?

Furthermore, previously (throughout history) when the money supply was increased, it caused inflation ~1.5 years later, almost automatically. This relationship held true when unemployment was high or low.

It's not at all apparent to me how this is relevant to increasing stratification of wealth having a negative impact on the velocity of money.

So those are my reasons for thinking it's probably not the cause of money velocity falling.

I was hoping you could connect the dots for me explicitly. As it stands, I really don't have any better of an understanding of your point.

Re:Capacity is growing faster than money supply

[NoImNotNineVolt]

I was hoping you could connect the dots for me explicitly

Yes, actually you want me to give you the education you would get in macro-economics 101 lol.

If you had no intent of actually presenting a logical argument, you shouldn't have wasted both of our time with your earlier post of incomplete thoughts.

So, being a rich saver doesn't necessarily reduce money velocity, and can actually increase it.

Indeed. And it doesn't necessarily increase the velocity of money, and can actually decrease it.

No, that doesn't make any sense. When someone invests money, they increase the velocity of money. That is it definitive.

You use the word "increase" here relative to nothing. This is ambiguous. Let's fix that.

When someone invests money (instead of sitting on it), they increase the velocity of money. When someone invests money (instead of spending it on consumer goods), they decrease the velocity of money. That is definitive, and it's not so vague that it's nearly meaningless.

If we are talking about decreasing the velocity of money by investing, the only thing you can possibly mean is that it decreased relatively; that is, the rich person wasn't investing as quickly as before.

So I can't possibly mean that investing has, in aggregate, a negative effect on the velocity of money relative to consumer spending (or, if you prefer, a less-positive effect than consumer spending)? Why not? Why is it that I couldn't have possibly meant that "velocity of money is faster at the poorer end of the economy than it is at the wealthier end", which is actually exactly what I said verbatim?

I had an unfortunate feeling when I was penning my original post that this wasn't likely to lead to a productive conversation. Or, in words that you might understand better, lol.

Re:Capacity is growing faster than money supply

[NoImNotNineVolt]

I'd like to point out that you've ignored literally every question that my post contained, but you replied regardless. I take that to mean that you're more interested in talking at me than actually having a conversation. That approach doesn't seem likely to yield any meaningful insights, in my opinion.

When someone invests money (instead of sitting on it), they increase the velocity of money. When someone invests money (instead of spending it on consumer goods), they decrease the velocity of money.

No, what matters here is how quickly it changes hands to another person, not whether it changes hands in exchange for consumer goods

So, let me get this straight. If someone invests money, say in treasury bills, and as a result, it changes hands two or three times over the next year, this money has the same velocity as money that is spent at a food truck, where it will change hands two or three times over the next day? That buying bonds instead of cheeseburgers doesn't result in a net decrease in velocity of money? That notion seems to be at odds with the textbook definition of money velocity. In case you're not the academic type, and textbook definitions mean nothing to you, then let's grab an arbitrary media publication that also counters your position:

Money tends to slow down in the early stages of an economic recovery as people reduce spending, pay down debt, and increase their savings rate, and it doesn’t pick up speed until about four years into a turnaround.

--matthew philips, associate editor at bloomberg businessweek

(I just googled for 'investments slow velocity of money' and picked the first [arguably] reputable media outlet -- 5th hit for me)

Your model would suggest that reduced spending and increasing savings rates shouldn't decrease the velocity of money, as you disagree with my claim that consumer spending increases money velocity more than investing does. This is contrary to both intuition and economic data. Do you have any evidence to back this rather unorthodox position beyond a reference to "econ 101 lol"?

Also, now seems like a good time to point out that we've long departed from the original context, which was me asking you why you felt that stratification of wealth was insufficient to cause the economic slowdown that we're seeing. You still haven't answered that question, or any other that I've posed. In hindsight, I think I would've had better luck steering this thread in a more informative direction with mod points instead of pointed questions.

Cheers, and may we both have better luck next time.

What about unemployed robots?

[Anonymous Coward]

What will happen to all the robots producing fluorescent lights that will lose their jobs once all the other industries are taken over by robots that can work in the dark? How will they afford hydrolic fluid replacements and filter cleanings?

Simple Solution

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Before you get too excited about this

[JoeyRox]

You must understand that Bill Gross was speaking in jest. He's a lifelong bond investor and the inflation he predicts from this strategy is anathema to bonds. Now he wouldn't mind some inflation if it meant the net interest rates would rise as a result (ie, interest on bonds minus inflation) but he doesn't expect that from the strategy he proposes in the article. Again, it was written in jest.

Re:Uh uh

[korgitser]

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.

Re:F*cking Keynesian morons.

[Tablizer]

Someone or something has to manage the supply of money. It doesn't manage itself. And always keeping it the same can create problems. Capacity and population typically expand over time, not always at the same rate. Keeping the money supply the same doesn't make sense under such changes.

The gold standard has been suggested to force a consistent standard, but there are a boatload of potential problems with it. Experiment on a smaller country first.

And why not try to patch the holes in the business cycle (boom/bust cylces)? The business cycle has been happening for 400 odd years, and so is not caused by Keynesian economics.

Keynesian economics done right is a form of common sense: save up during the good times so you have spending money for the bad times. I see nothing really wrong that.

Politicians often spend during the good times instead of save up, but they'd do it also without Keynes. You can't blame Keynes for stupid politicians (and stupid voters). If humans don't plan, don't blame the few who attempt to plan.

Re:Uh uh

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:Uh uh

[rmdingler]

Wow... critical of the Americans. That has got to be the most original viewpoint I've ever read on /..

Tell you what: capitalize Americans next time you post, or we'll come over there and depose your tyrant head of state.

The Fed helicopters don't fly over us

[istartedi]

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.

Re: the sky is falling

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:Uh uh

[Anonymous Coward]

... reasons are obvious, and generally acknowledged ...

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.

Re:Uh uh

[korgitser]

I would say you need to go deeper than that.
Technology in itself is neutral. Why is it a problem? Who are the people who abuse it, what are their incentives, how is it that they are in a position to create problems out of technology?
Globalisation in moderation is quite nice. I mean you like foreign food, goods, people, culture. How has globalisation then evolved into a situation where it craps on everything it touches?
Regressive taxes. Well a society can structure taxes whatever way it likes, there is no right or wrong way besides suitability for a purpose. When I look at the situation in the US, I get more of an impression that the problem is that all the people hate all the taxes. Well taxes are your goddamn phone bill, you do not argue against paying your bills, do you? With taxes you split the bill to purchase services, whether the reason is to save on cost, improve on quality or just make the service happen at all. You all want police, roads and schools, and you want them to be good, right? Then put up or shut up, pay your way and get some QA and accountability into the process.

The thing with reasons is that you need to always look deeper into them. What are the reasons of the reasons? What are the reasons of the reasons of the reasons? You need to find the root reasons and solve those, then you have the possibility for improvement. When you are sick, you don't treat the symptoms, you treat the illness.

Singularity

[pellik]

I've held this as a fun talking point for years. It's a fantastic way for a liberal like myself to break down barriers to discourse with hardcore conservatives about socialist ideology. It's clear that the jobs we are losing to automation are not being replaced by new industries at a fast enough pace to keep our ever growing population at full employment. We need to re-imagine the core of our society in much the same way as we changed during industrialization before the problem comes to a head, or we face the same or even greater pains many of the industrialized nations felt the last time society underwent such massive restructuring.

Re:Uh uh

[Sibko]

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.

Re:Uh uh

[Bonobo_Unknown]

There is an alternative to GBI, and that's public works - the government makes sure that if there are 200 million people that there are 200 million public works jobs available. They could range from childcare to visual arts and engineering. Anything at all that requires a person rather than a machine. Then people have to apply for the positions. This would inspire a little bit of competition and could help satisfy the notion of 'work ethic' that some people have (and seem to want to enforce on other people). The obvious drawback is that it would mean a massivly centralised and centrally controlled government, but hey if a superior AI is contoling everything that might be a good thing.

Re:Uh uh

[korgitser]

To give a dollar for a homeless guy? Preposterous. If America ever taught me anything, it's that helping thy neighbor is socialism and God hates you for that.

Re:Uh uh

[Daemonik]

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.

Re:Uh uh

[lgw]

Whatever you subsidize, you get more of. If SF was the best place to get money as a homeless person, you would not see a decline in the number of homeless people.

Re:Uh uh

[ShanghaiBill]

There is a very obvious problem of mass unemployment and automation

No there isn't. Unemployment is at 5%, with is basically full employment. Workforce participation isn't back to where it was in 2007, but basically nearly everyone that wants a job can find one. The problem is that the jobs being offered are not very good, and wages are stagnant.

If automation was happening on a massive scale, productivity would be soaring. But productivity is stagnant and barely rising at all. Many manufacturing jobs were lost to automation in the 1970s and 1980s, but that process has mostly run its course, and service jobs, which dominate today's economy, are proving much harder to automate.

Someday, robots may steal all our jobs, but there is very little evidence of that happening today.

Re:Uh uh

[phantomfive]

That's the dumbest reason I've ever heard for not helping a person.

Re: Uh uh

[Bonobo_Unknown]

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.

Re:Uh uh

[silentcoder]

But everytime somebody proposes a minimum wage that people can live on to correct the "jobs being offered are not very good, and wages are stagnant" problem we're told that this would instantly trigger the automation of all those jobs as well.

The problem is real - and it's only being held at bay by keeping wages so depressed that people *with* jobs are still needing welfare - basically by having taxpayers supplement each other's incomes !

That's silly by every measurement - so bugger raising the minimum wage, scrap it entirely and institute a wage-floor with UBI instead. You get a much more comprehensive way to solve the same problem than the half-arsed hackjob being used right now, with none of the massive downsides, none of the protests and unrest it causes and it costs a LOT less.

We're headed to a world where the only marketable skills will be business-owner, robot-programmer or robotics engineer. So be it, but if the business owners want anybody to be able to buy the things their fully automated businesses produce, we will need some other way for the rest of the population to earn a living.

Re:Uh uh

[Wycliffe]

There is an alternative to GBI, and that's public works - the government makes sure that if there are 200 million people that there are 200 million public works jobs available. They could range from childcare to visual arts and engineering. Anything at all that requires a person rather than a machine. Then people have to apply for the positions. This would inspire a little bit of competition and could help satisfy the notion of 'work ethic' that some people have (and seem to want to enforce on other people). The obvious drawback is that it would mean a massivly centralised and centrally controlled government, but hey if a superior AI is contoling everything that might be a good thing.

I agree that public works is a good alternative to GBI. It also help people feel like they are contributing. There are plenty of jobs that could be invented from making trails, to picking up trash, to tutoring. Even something as simple as paying people to volunteer at the 501c3 of their choice. Another option though (or maybe in combination) would be to start reducing the work week in sync with the job loss. If the maximum work week was 40 hours and the government mandated 39 this should in theory lower unemployment by approximately 2.5% when companies hire to replace all that lost work. Many people currently work more that 40 so just setting it at 40 should help the unemployment number. Another less drastic option would be to increase overtime pay to 2 times instead of 1.5 times. 1.5 times is probably about break even for a company compared to hiring a new employee. Moving it to 2 times and it would be cheaper for a company to hire extra employees at 30 hours per week so that during crunch time they can go up to 40. Basically, our automation and efficiency has been going up for years but the hours worked per person has either stayed the same or even gone up. It's a wonder our unemployment is as low as it is. It's probably time to start redistributing that efficiency across the board by increasing people's leisure time.

Re:Uh uh

[Wycliffe]

There is a very obvious problem of mass unemployment and automation

No there isn't. Unemployment is at 5%, with is basically full employment. Workforce participation isn't back to where it was in 2007, but basically nearly everyone that wants a job can find one. The problem is that the jobs being offered are not very good, and wages are stagnant.

If automation was happening on a massive scale, productivity would be soaring. But productivity is stagnant and barely rising at all. Many manufacturing jobs were lost to automation in the 1970s and 1980s, but that process has mostly run its course, and service jobs, which dominate today's economy, are proving much harder to automate.

Someday, robots may steal all our jobs, but there is very little evidence of that happening today.

You're arguing a technicality. Yes, there are jobs still available, but as you admit, they are low paying crap jobs. There are whole industries that revolve around taking advantage of cheap human labor and even those are starting to be automated. Just because we can give everyone a job doesn't mean the original good jobs didn't disappear. It's like a nursing home that replaced all it's doctors and nurses with robots and then hired minimum wage "companions" to sit and talk to the elderly. Yes, technically they still employ the same amount of people but the real jobs are gone. That's what a lot of these service jobs are. It's actually worse than that. Many of the service jobs *could* be automated, these people are just cogs in a machine but it's cheaper to pay someone minimum wage than it is to buy and maintain an expensive robot.

Re: Uh uh

[jmd]

Capitalism's amorality is why we need a strong mediator (such as an uncorrupted democratic government) to mediate between the capitalist and the people.

No.

[aepervius]

In fact I pity millenials because they do not have it as easy as I am getting it, and again I have not gotten it as easy as boomers. They are cominc at the end tail of estate boom, and therre has been not enough re-adjustement toward lower estate prices in many area booming with jobs. Hello rental until the end of your life.

Re:Uh uh

[omfgnosis]

No, it's not.

Re:Uh uh

[omfgnosis]

Technology in itself is neutral.

The fuck it is. Industrial society behaves fundamentally differently from non-industrial society. Same goes for fire, levers and computers. Technology is transformative, and that's not neutral.

Re: Uh uh

[Anonymous Coward]

Of the three Nordic countries only Norway has lots of oil and gas.

Re: Uh uh

[KozmoStevnNaut]

Denmark still has some (AFAIK we're a net oil exporter), but we sold most of it to Norway. Yeah, not the best decision ever.

Re:I've been asking my peers......

[goose-incarnated]

everybody realizes that the only things scarce enough to merit payment anymore are time and human companionship?

So the very first profession will also be the very last one too?

Re:Uh uh

[ultranova]

So be it, but if the business owners want anybody to be able to buy the things their fully automated businesses produce, we will need some other way for the rest of the population to earn a living.

Do they want that? If they don't need Joe Average to produce stuff or provide services for them, wouldn't a typical CEO be happy to have Joe starve to death or be gunned down by security drones?

We've created a system where the most ruthless rise to the top, and are now making ourselves redundant for that system - and thus their power. We've created the inhuman engine of destruction we've been fearing for decades, and indeed computers made it possible - but it's the hand of the worst of us which signs the death warrant of humanity.

This is AMERICA!

[Thud457]

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.

Re:Uh uh

[kilfarsnar]

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.

Re:automation vs. jobs

[GameboyRMH]

It was for real last time, the luddites and their children died in grinding poverty, only their grandchildren started to get work. Most people don't know that and think that the luddites worked themselves into a tizzy for nothing and were back to work the next week. Not so.

This time it could be not only for real, but permanent.

Re:Make Money Fast

[luis_a_espinal]

There are two ways to get rich in the stock market:

* Win the lottery * Rig the game

Please tell us which of the two you find more likely and why.

That's not a counter-argument. That's an slogan.

Re:Uh uh

[NoImNotNineVolt]

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.

Re:Uh uh

[ComputerGeek01]

Well taxes are your goddamn phone bill, you do not argue against paying your bills, do you?

Phone bill huh? I like this analogy, let's roll with it. Let's say that you're America and you're paying $100.00 a month for your phone bill. The phone itself sends and receives phone calls with an adequate level of service, holds a charge all day long and it's nothing that you can't afford so you should be happy with your service right? But now you look across the street to your neighbor who is paying $115.00 a month for a phone that does everything yours does plus high speed internet, video chat, free video games, unlimited talk time and a battery that lasts for a full week. You would obviously want to switch to his phone service but they don't service your side of the street. You could move, but that would be a huge financial investment, a great personal risk, an inconvenience to your family and you would miss your friends on this side of the street. So you call up your phone company and ask them what the big deal is, why are you getting ripped off and all you hear back is how great your call quality is and how your neighbor has such an inferior service that he is basically living in a mud shack. Despite the obvious bullshit you'd be wasting your time arguing with this drone, so you ask about their internet service only to to be told that your provider doesn't offer even basic service because somebodies grandma told them once that it was a sin. You ask about picture messages but they don't offer that either because it might offend some guy named Burt who never leaves his Mothers basement. You ask about the free video games and the phone company calls you a degenerate pirate with a false sense of entitlement who is just trying to get for free stuff. To top it all off, there is a group of people in the company who are trying to take away your phone charger because some jackass plugged it in wrong and it started a fire. The only other service on your side of the street is a subsidiary of your current provider. You could look for a way to change this but your Home Owners Association won't allow people to vote on it because they don't like change. So yes, I'm going to bitch about my "phone bill" because it's the only thing I can do.

I really like this analogy, I've basically explained what every American goes through politically between the ages of 18 to 25. Things could be better, but at the end of the day I'm still happy enough with the service to pay for it.

Most of you are making a false assumption

[cellocgw]

There's this bright shining lie (with apologies to Sheehan) in America that one can only achieve salvation -or something- via long, hard work. It's a lie.

There is no reason anyone should work long hours, or even any hours at all (see The Diamond Age) once robotics proliferate. There are plenty of ways to be happy while not having a "job," and it's foolish to think that we should have to pay for goods and services that are produced at little to no cost.

Part of the transition to a truly money-free society is the guaranteed minimum income, or similarly named government distributions to all citizens. It sure would be nice if the next step were to make the "standard' work week 30 or 25 hours. It's certainly doable.