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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Says Labor Shouldn't Have To Fear Automation (techcrunch.com)
Munky101 tipped us off to some interesting comments from New York's activist congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. TechCrunch reports:
It's impossible to discuss the seismic shift toward automation without a conversation about job loss. Opponents of these technologies criticize a displacement that could someday result in wide-scale unemployment among what is often considered "unskilled" roles. Advocates, meanwhile, tend to suggest that reports of that nature tend to be overstated. Workforces shift, as they have done for time immemorial. During a conversation at SXSW this week, New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez offered another take entirely.
"We should not be haunted by the specter of being automated out of work," she said in an answer reported by The Verge. "We should be excited by that. But the reason we're not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don't have a job, you are left to die. And that is, at its core, our problem... We should be excited about automation, because what it could potentially mean is more time educating ourselves, more time creating art, more time investing in and investigating the sciences, more time focused on invention, more time going to space, more time enjoying the world that we live in," The Verge quoted Ocasio-Cortez as saying. "Because not all creativity needs to be bonded by wage."
And Ocasio-Cortez cited Bill Gates' suggestion (first floated in a presentation on Quartz) that a robot tax might be a way to make that vision real. "What [Gates is] really talking about is taxing corporations," she reportedly said. "But it's easier to say: 'tax a robot.' "
Science fiction writer William Gibson called her comments "shockingly intelligent" for a politician. Fast Company adds that robots "have put half a million people out of work in the United States, and researchers estimate that bots could take 800 million jobs by 2030" -- then quotes Ocasio-Cortez's assessment of the unfair state of labor today.
"We should be working the least amount we've ever worked, if we were actually paid based on how much wealth we were producing, but we're not," she said. "We're paid by how little we're desperate enough to accept. And then the rest is skimmed off and given to a billionaire."
"We should not be haunted by the specter of being automated out of work," she said in an answer reported by The Verge. "We should be excited by that. But the reason we're not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don't have a job, you are left to die. And that is, at its core, our problem... We should be excited about automation, because what it could potentially mean is more time educating ourselves, more time creating art, more time investing in and investigating the sciences, more time focused on invention, more time going to space, more time enjoying the world that we live in," The Verge quoted Ocasio-Cortez as saying. "Because not all creativity needs to be bonded by wage."
And Ocasio-Cortez cited Bill Gates' suggestion (first floated in a presentation on Quartz) that a robot tax might be a way to make that vision real. "What [Gates is] really talking about is taxing corporations," she reportedly said. "But it's easier to say: 'tax a robot.' "
Science fiction writer William Gibson called her comments "shockingly intelligent" for a politician. Fast Company adds that robots "have put half a million people out of work in the United States, and researchers estimate that bots could take 800 million jobs by 2030" -- then quotes Ocasio-Cortez's assessment of the unfair state of labor today.
"We should be working the least amount we've ever worked, if we were actually paid based on how much wealth we were producing, but we're not," she said. "We're paid by how little we're desperate enough to accept. And then the rest is skimmed off and given to a billionaire."
When has automation or technology ever made it easier to be a worker? You just end up doing the job of 10 people and getting paid the same.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
No doubt this time.
My friend owns a bar, pays workers minimum wage, last time I checked heâ(TM)s not a billionaire....
Almost as intelligent as her recent grilling of Wells Fargo...
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
A problem is an opportunity. Inefficiency is something for us techies to tackle. Our work should not be taxed into oblivion because some clown in government wants power at the expense of our jobs. We should be allowed to innovate. Other countries will innovate and if you tax our innovation then we are less competitive.
See subject: You're 'geeks'! Look @ a BRIGHT side: You're @ least SOMEWHAT PREPARED for new careers as robot-techs (it's PC related w/ servo motors pretty much, right?)
* THINK ABOUT IT...
APK
P.S.=> Am I for robots? Not really - HOWEVER: It's a "yes/no" thing like many things are!
Robotics robs "the uneducated unwashed unskilled masses" (who should have attained marketable skills vs. this) of mindless menial jobs!
(Overall - not good, stops taxpayers & put them on welfare roles property owners like me pay for in LARGE BULK vs. workers (or business which now leases plant/property/equipment vs. building & owning so they can tell politiicians "do what I SAY or we PULL OUT this town - good luck being re-elected after that when voters BLAME YOU, not I")!
Does robotics increase producitivity + overall LOWER overheads (liability/insurance/payroll etc.)?
I think HOSTESS & their twinkies proved it does iirc but WHO WILL BUY THE TWINKIES when you are put on a "hand-to-mouth" existence where there is LITTLE TO NO "disposable income" fun-money & only food/heat/electric/water/rent-mortgage/taxes come 1st?
Ask yourselves ALL that - you decide... apk
"We should be working the least amount we've ever worked, if we were actually paid based on how much wealth we were producing, but we're not," she said. "We're paid by how little we're desperate enough to accept. And then the rest is skimmed off and given to a billionaire."
If you're just showing up for a McJob, you're not producing wealth and you're not paid to produce wealth. You're trading your hours for dollars. The corporation is generating wealth and they're trading a portion of that wealth with you for your time and labor. That is the key thing to understand and if more people did, we'd have more wealthy people in the world.
She's going to flood your country with moslems and spics.
Then she'll disarm you all and next thing you'll be in Glorious Comrade's labor camps.
"But the reason we're not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don't have a job, you are left to die."
We do have welfare programs and even housing programs that pay as much as some basic income proposals. So while it is true your life can suck horribly if you don't have a job, you won't be left to die.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I've got a great plan. Let's jam as many people as we can into every country. Wages go down, real estate goes up, tax income goes up and there will be more people to purchase our goods and services. Bling bling. Don't worry about the pollution, climate change etc. that's all bull and has nothing to do with the number of people on the planet. If the the bitches start whining about their quality of life or whatever then just tell them it's never been better. Now when 'robots' are doing the majority of tasks we'll ummm hell I'm not sharing my profits. Have to think about that one.
Ok we get it. She thinks tax/redistribution is the answer. That just feels like half the solution. The other half is what will the people DO with their UBI or similar style income?
Oh and of course taxing the robots will slow down the inovation which seems to contradict her first point about welcoming the automation.
What she means, of course, is "it's easier to sell: 'tax a robot.' " "Don't tax you and don't tax me, tax that robot behind the tree."
Or is this post too late?
She always says it like it is. Too bad she's not running for president.
The Democratic Nationalist Committee should change the name of the Party.
Automation doesn't replace wealthy management jobs, it replaces blue collar jobs. AOC has no clue what she's talking about much of the time. I think she is surrounded by incompetent people who do little research on a subject. I think even many Democrat's are beginning to get tired of her ramblings.
AOC impresses me more and more every day.
She has clearly done her homework and understands Socialist theory (as taught by the DSA).
Not only that -- she sticks to those principles and does not adapt to the popular wind direction of the day.
I have less confidence in the DSA and the Democrats, but so far, AOC is solid!
Now let the trolls pile on -- it does not change the fact that Capitalism is failing (and threatening to take the world with it).
But the reason we're not excited by it is because we live in a society where if you don't have a job, you are left to die.
Out of those of working age and able bodied there's about 6 million USA'rs who are unemployed. Very few of them are dying. Next!
And that is, at its core, our problem... We should be excited about automation, because what it could potentially mean is more time educating ourselves, more time creating art, more time investing in and investigating the sciences, more time focused on invention, more time going to space, more time enjoying the world that we live in... Because not all creativity needs to be bonded by wage.
Ah yes, this fallacy. Free time is suddenly going to open people up to all kinds of innovation and creation. I see just tons of science, art and innovation coming from our slums and trailer parks. It's amazing. Who woulda thunk these hovels of inhumanity would sprout this kind of output of ideas and creativity? A truly great time to be alive.
While I will agree that I'd be excited to see people free up more of their time to hopefully do something meaningful with their lives outside of their labor it really just doesn't happen that way. A very small percentage do.
Instead of just dumping people off and letting them to their own devices how about everyone start by contributing and then have the choice to step back and take it easy as they grow older? Creating a UBI that essentially lowers the retirement age would be much better and more productive than just handing money to everyone. Let everyone have some skin in the game. This kind of participation helps create a solid foundation of self respect and self reliance instead of another generation who waits to be fed like animals in cage.
AOC doesn't seem to have the remotest understanding of human nature.
1. People need to feel of value. That what they do matters. Even if just a little bit (aka macjobs)
2. Idle people sooner or later get around to doing very bad things - to themselves, to others.
3. There's not a uniform level of ability, drive, self-sufficiency and the like. It's basically the bell curve.
What she is advocating is simply that the lower half of humanity should just give up, go and die.
Violence and/or revolution is the likely result - see France at the moment.
A value added tax to fund a UBI/Universal Basic Services is another approach and one harder to circumvent with tax or production location loopholes. Say you wanted to implement a UBI of 12k per person per year for adults. That's roughly 3 trillion per year in the US given 250 million on the payroll. Projected US population and projected GDP show that the GDP is outpacing population growth by a large margin. Even if you take inflation into account, the price of goods and services is dropping as automation takes over. You can save money by cancelling other welfare programs, and all that cash would trickle up into the economy as well which has positive benefits. These alone could make a meager straight UBI doable in a 20-40 year timeframe, maybe even 12k/year, if the population and GDP keep growing roughly as expected.
Wait... won't automation and Weak AI/AI bring down the costs of goods and services? What would people absolutely have to spend that money on? Housing? Food? Child care? Education? Healthcare? Access to information? Given the lower future costs it may be best to give out 500 dollars today's equivelant per month and offer free basic housing around the nation, free basic food, free child care, free education, free healthcare, and free basic internet access. The costs of all of these could go quite low in the future and a regulated non profit market like Germany has health insurance or a government run solution could be quite efficient with low overhead if done right. That way the most needy benefit the most with the basic services, and everyone is lifted by the basic income while reasonably well off people will forgo their basic services and pay for better ones.
You know what else has failed? Socialism. Good luck with that!
You're easily impressed, but I'm talking to a guy whose cock gets excited by his mom wearing a bikini. Low standards all around.
The trend throughout the history of humanity has been towards less work. We've gone from small groups that had to keep watch 24/7, to tribes that had to leave their encampments for days on end hunting and gathering, to villagers having to work 7 days a week, 16 hours a day, to towns that work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, to cities that work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day, and we're already seeing the rise of flexible working, home working, and talk of 4 day weeks.
It seems pretty clear that automation by robotics will merely continue this trend; workers will be just as productive supported by robots working 3 or 4 days a week as they were working 5 without those robots. As it has been since humanity first stopped swinging from trees this will inevitably not result in job losses; but simply people working for less time whilst achieving the same productivity.
But just as the trend has been towards people having to work less since humans first became humans, the complaints about how change will be the end of humanity have been constant, but also constantly wrong. Just as luddites who smashed up machinery in cotton mills 200 years ago believed that that machinery would put them out of work were completely wrong in that it merely meant they had to work less then, people who claim AI will put them out of work now are also wrong.
Everything changes and nothing changes, the world progresses, life gets better, but people still find things to get scared of, and moan and be wrong about as they always have done. Automation has only ever made it easier to be a worker, if you don't think so then go try living like a 17th century factory worker then come back and tell me people have it just as hard today. You're making the mistake of believing that because there are blips, because you don't see the benefits in your goldfish memory time frame, that it doesn't happen, but the entire history of humanity proves you wrong and there is zero evidence or reason to think this new technology will be in any way different.
it does not change the fact that Capitalism is failing
Citation needed.
Can't wait...
I used to love slashdot. Now it's just commie propaganda.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has said things that give the impression she doesn't think deeply.
Marshal Brain wrote a short sci fi story out lining the two path society can do as automation reduces the amount of labor required for daily sustenance. It's not the world's best writing but it's succinct and insightful
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The crap that rolls out of this woman's head is...I just have no words to convey the level of dumb.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Very telling that anyone who'd offset you is tagged as a troll before you've even heard their thoughts on the matter. Why not just claim they're all Nazis too?
Feelings are facts now.
I shake my head with great sadness when what spews from her mouth causes anyone to be impressed.
You want communism that works? Go to a small colony where people practice it willingly among themselves, kick out anyone who doesn't do their fair share, and have the option to leave of their own accord. On a national scale it will fail every time because it will be applied by force and those who can produce will no longer see a reason to contribute when they will just see their efforts stolen from them. Those in power who push communism don't give a shit about the people or their troubles, they just want power and they will take it even if it means slaughtering half the population.
The current system is failing because people are not removing the corruption from it. They have allowed laws to be broken and the guilty to walk free. People have gotten lazy and decadent, and are scared to do what needs to be done. All the rules in the world don't matter if you refuse to enforce them, or let evildoers change them in their favor.
people...
lol
These morons think they define reality and they can make it whatever they want. In actual reality, that is of course not how things work at all.
I do agree that it is not a good idea to fear having your job automated away. It will happen, but fearing it will just make things even worse. And there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it, except some temporary stop-gaps that will make things even worse though.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Yes, those failed nations like Norway and Sweden must be cursing their misfortune at not being #1 like the good ol US of A.
cut full time down to 30-32 hours and add Medicare for all
Well, she does seem to get what is happening. I am less sure she understands how extremely difficult it will be to deal with it.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Capitalism is failing
Capitalism has been failing for hundreds of years. Every decade of that failure, fewer and fewer people go hungry — so few now that new metrics like "food anxiety " (i.e. having to consider you might miss a meal) have been created to replace statistics that involve actual hunger.
Where do people genuinely go hungry? Venezuela. North Korea. Some places in Africa, but less and less there. It's amazing that the failures of capitalism seem to always be borne by people where capitalism is practiced least.
what about them, neither are socialist, they are free market with with a lot of social programs
Since I donâ(TM)t know when...
Labor fears our leaders care more about their power then our well being, red, white and/or blue.
Norway and Sweden are socialist? lol
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2018/07/08/sorry-bernie-bros-but-nordic-countries-are-not-socialist/#16da9af574ad
Practically all of of the 27 EU countries would disagree with you but what are facts?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
You do understand that no country is pure socialist or pure capitalist? Or are you trying to trying to ignore facts?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Like?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
>âoeit does not change the fact that Capitalism is failing
>Citation needed
The election of Trump/Brexit are both desperate responses by the electorate to DO SOMETHING
To be clear: I don't totally agree with everything she says. In this particular case, she sounds like she's going to start talking about so-called 'UBI' -- which I don't believe is a good idea in any way, shape, or form. People who have the motivation to work taken away from them just plain won't work at all, in spite of what UBI proponents claim about people 'finding their purpose', or 'being creative', or stuff like that: most people will just fritter away their lives and do essentially nothing of value for it. Meanwhile, go right ahead and try taking away the trillions that The Rich have accumulated, and see how far you get with that idea. If there was ever anything that would start Civil War 2, that's near the top of the list. You think The Rich won't fight back? Hell yes, they'll fight tooth and nail to keep their money and their power, and they'll buy armies and topple governments to keep what's theirs. You think the world is fucked right now? It's playtime compared to what the world would be like once The Rich are threatened and go on the attack with their trillions.
What we really need is a way to make all that money worthless that's been accumulated by The Rich, nullifying their power along with it. Your best guess as to how to accomplish that.
Maybe so, but the fact that she’s basically a one-woman Trump reelection campaign still stands.
I doubt she cares. She's probably getting a big laugh out of the thought of the difficulties.
I heard her claiming she wanted to "tax the robots" which sounds like a fucking horrible idea. What she meant was "tax the rich" who are benefiting from robotics, but when she says "tax the robots" it sounds like she's trying to destroy innovation. Stick with "tax the rich".
Flat tax rate. Something like 10% (let the bean counters work out what the revenue neutral percentage would be). With only one deduction for businesses: W-2 wages paid.
These profiteers fall into several categories: for-profit private prison companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group that operate family and adult detention centers, and non-profits like Southwest Key Programs that operate child detention centers; contractors that provide support services to this process, such as MVM and General Dynamics, which provide IT, transportation, case management, and other logistical services; and on top of it all, Wall Street banks like Wells Fargo, as well as major money managers like BlackRock and Vanguard, which are financing and investing in all of these companies.
who-is-profiting-from-incarcerating-immigrant-families/
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, The Netherlands . . . all. I think your confusion is that you understand the difference between communism and socialism.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
These profiteers fall into several categories: for-profit private prison companies like CoreCivic and GEO Group that operate **family and adult** detention centers, and non-profits like Southwest Key Programs that operate **child detention** centers; contractors that provide support services to this process, such as MVM and General Dynamics, which provide IT, transportation, case management, and other logistical services; and on top of it all, Wall Street banks like Wells Fargo, as well as major money managers like BlackRock and Vanguard, which are financing and investing in all of these companies.
Venezuela sells their oil, that's a capitalist endeavor isn't it "cretin" lol, ya dumb faggot? No country is 100% socialist or 100% capitalist. A government is a socialist endeavor, beyond merely protecting the regulated flow of capital.
Anything beyond that is socialism. All countries go beyond that. Checkmate, you lose pedantry.
What we really need is a way to make all that money worthless that's been accumulated by The Rich
Inflation is the answer to that, but "The Rich" have been keeping it artificially low.
Well, to cover Medicare For All, we'd have to increase Medicare revenues from ~$290 billion to about eleven times that. And then the rate would have to be increased another 25% to account for your cut in hours. So rather than paying 1.45% for Medicare, everyone will have to pay around 21%. So every worker gets to pay an additional ~19.5% tax on every dollar they make. Between Medicare For All and Social Security, each worker will pay 28% of their wages. Double that for the self-employed, as they have to pay both halves (the half paid by the worker and the half paid by the employer). So self-employed folks will hand over nearly 60% of their revenue before we even start discussing Federal income taxes, let alone State income taxes...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
You are uneducated. You don't know the difference between socialism and capitalism because you don't want to know what words mean, would rather be a moron. Therefore you have given up your right to make educated points, intentionally.
Corruption exists in all government types. Socialism is a real (and not-so-threatening) part of ALL governments in the world, if you actually break down, learn to read, and study the issue. (you won't, lol.)
The problem with Republicans like you, you believe your opinion outweighs the objective facts of the matter, that you can "will" words to change and history to alter. Lol. You idiotic premature nazis belong in the book bonfire - as fuel.
You've proven again and again, there's no fixing stupid - especially when it thinks stupid is a virtue and "elites" are trying to steal it from them by teaching them concepts and words, lol.
Which country with a socialist economy has succeeded?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Funny, but I'm getting the same impression about you and your post.
What we really need is a way to make all that money worthless that's been accumulated by The Rich
Inflation is the answer to that, but "The Rich" have been keeping it artificially low.
Inflation is how you pay for UBI. You just print the money and hand it out. Any money which the wealthy people have stashed is devalued. This encourages investment.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Twelve years to Climageddon. Medicare For All by just paying for it. You can move millions from a PAC to a private LLC without concern. Unemployment is low because everyone is working two jobs. Need I go on?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
No, we wouldn't, because virtually every other country on earth pays for full universal healthcare for HALF of what we already spend on just medicare/medicaid.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
$32.6 trillion over 10 years for Medicare For All. And that's based on Medicare spending rates, which are 60% of what hospitals and doctors charge private insurance. How do we pay for that? Do you think doctors and hospitals will all accept a 40% cut in revenue (and a much higher cut in actual profit) simply because?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Source : US OFFICE OF MGMT & BUDGET. OWNED. SMOKED. SOLD AS JERKY
Republicans can't admit they're the true party of deficit spending, but the facts don't really care about their bullshit cowardly lies. That bill comes due either way.
You need to cite what she actually said and not paraphrase what you interpret. Should I go on?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
right now a major problem we have is people are forced to cram into big cities where the jobs are in the hopes of landing one. This drives up costs and puts downward pressure on effective wages. Work from home isn't an option for a variety of reasons (not the least of which is that companies like to see what they're paying for).
UBI would let people take lower pay, spending their UBI on necessities and using their job income for luxuries. The cost of living would drop considerably overall as we could spread out into the land we have now (yes, shipping costs would go up a bit, but not as much as you think. Most folks are just going to move to smaller cities, not the boondocks).
The other thing people would spend UBI on is freedom. Remember, you're not free so long as somebody controls your access to food, shelter, medicine and education. Until you secure those things you're one paycheck away from doing anything the people in charge tell you.
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Twelve years to Climageddon. You just pay for it. Just illegally shuffle money between PACs and LLCs. Unemployment is low because everyone is working two jobs. Need I go on?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
the modern farming techniques that made that possible were mostly a product of the Public Universities. Capitalism, OTOH, has hamstrung the distribution network to keep rent seekers going.
In the mid-2000s, for instance, Bush Jr deregulated the commodities market. For the first time since the Great Depression investors could buy commodities like pork bellies and grain without taking possession of them. Previously that was illegal to prevent exactly the kind of middle men you think it was meant to prevent.
One last thing, do a bit more research on those statistics about capitalism lifting people out of poverty and you'll find it's less actual lifting and more fiddling with the numbers. Just like how we're at full employment but mysteriously wages are stagnant or going down.
TL;DR;, you're being lied to. Spend some time on google and YouTube and you can prove this to yourself.
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How's that dishonesty problem, eh GOP? You keep moving the goalposts for Democratic spending proposals just to tender YOUR DEFICITS. Obama saves the day, Trump goes and fumbles it harder.
There's no fixing Republican intransigent deficit spending and subsequent lying. You're just dishonest bad-at-math cunts - any fiscal conservatives left HATE TRUMP'S IDIOTIC TRAITOR GUTS for what he's done!
You have to be willingly stupid to go along with blowing hundreds of millions of dollars if not billions just to shut down the government to try to FORCE something that even your OWN party doesn't support close to that level!
YOUR OWN-GOALS ARE KILLING THE COUNTRY, MORONS. There are only so many Bill Clintons and Obamas to bail you spending junkies out of prison, pretty soon we're going to LEAVE YOU THERE FOR GOOD.
Not socialism - religion. Church can give money and food to those who need it. Free time can be spent praying, converting unbelievers. Church is nearly as powerful as a government and has the minds of millions at their command. I'm not religious but seriously, think about how religion has positioned itself in society in the past when religion was powerful. Maybe religion can stir up inter-planetary colonization as its way to serve God.
BTW, this probably comes off as a 'nutter' post but I haven't heard anything more plausible thus far.
Anyone who thinks this stupid cunt is going to disrupt the system doesn't have a CLUE about how things REALLY work.
I predict an "accident" for her, because she is fucking with power that is above her level of understanding and powerful people are not going to allow her to fuck up the machine. One way or another they will get rid of her stupid ass.
AOC impresses me more and more every day.
-
You are an idiot.
KILL YOURSELF NOW.
AOC has a degree in economics. She knows damn well what reality is. There's been plenty of research on the subject and we've long since gotten to the point where we can feed, cloth, house and give healthcare to everyone and that's before the coming Automation Revolution.
OTOH I've got folks on the right who tell me they'll be new jobs but nobody'll say what those jobs are. Occasionally somebody will say "Bio-Tech", which is what I heard in the 90s. Or they list a bunch of service jobs nobody will be able to afford when they lose their jobs. Meanwhile the President of the United States is a climate change denier. And one way we know climate change is real is that it's been called out in SEC filings. You can lie to Congress, you can lie to your Priest, hell, you can even lie to yourself, but you do not lie to the SEC...
And don't get me started on the Evangelicals that make up the second wing of the GOP (the first being the wealthy plutocrats). There's a lot that wouldn't know reality if it bit 'em on the rear. They're still arguing that Evolution isn't a thing and that The Flood happened. I know it's not nice to call folks out for religious beliefs, but wrong is wrong, and I draw the line when they start trying to sneak it into schools and into laws, which they've been doing for ages (Abortion bans anyone?)
Fearing a bad thing doesn't make it worse if you stop it from happening. We're not animals at the whims of nature. We're thinking, reasoning beings.
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Yes. They won't have a choice. If medical services in the US keep going up, they'll eventually become unaffordable for the average American as employers drop coverage, and healthcare premiums skyrocket. What we have now is not sustainable.
Give universal basic income to people who can't or won't work, but only if they don't have children. That way you select away from incompetence and / or laziness. This will also help eliminate poverty, because the jobless are going to be typically poor, and the best way reduce poverty is for the poor not to have children.
she clearly doesnt understand you cant just print 100 trillion in currency to pay for stuff. The more you just print, the less its worth. If you print an extra 100 trillion a weeks worth of groceries are going to cost you 10,000 in devalued dollars.
Capitalism is failing
To paraphrase an old saying, capitalism is the worst way to run an economy - except for all the others...
When 'C'apitalism fails, a lot of people lose jobs and have to figure out what to do.
When 'S'ocialism fails, you wind up with results from people getting drinking water from sewers, to 20 million (or more) dead...
The funny thing is, that socialism will always be roundly rejected by the majority of Americans. Would you like to know why? Because quite a lot the victims of socialists disasters through the decades, all end up here with the US being about as opposite from Socialism as you can get... they come in, a constant stream of people with fresh and painful memories of the literal horrors you wish to bring down on a healthy and happy populace.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
SOCIALism does allow ownership, but everyone starts "leveled" and 1% can't own IT ALL. Now, COMMNUNism would be more of an Ivanka thing... having slaves make your overpriced goods, then centralizing the profit.
FTFY
Everything she says.
Some will. However, some doctors will just retire and fewer people will become doctors which will result in more doctor shortages.
Some facilities will close, others will reduce expansion and expenses resulting in longer waits, less pleasant patient experience, and, in some cases, reduced quality of care (instead of spending seven minutes with the patient, the doctor will now spend four -- and thereby occasionally miss something important).
Since Medicare For All (Sanders' version) bans all medical insurance (employer provided or open market) that covers procedures that Medicare would cover and participating providers have to take Medicare as coverage in full, only the wealthy could access premium care --- or so it seems. What is actually likely to happen is that doctors and facilities will join various "concierge networks" (perhaps created and administered by the existing insurance companies). Employers like Google will pay the $7K/year cost per covered person in their employer base to enroll employees and their families in a network. Being a "member" may give you exclusive access to some of the best facilities and doctors or give you "first access" (same day/walk in appointments vs. the nonmembers who may have to wait weeks for an appointment or all day if they walk in) and extended services (such as 15 minute office visits instead of four minute ones, separate waiting rooms with more amenities, etc). Doctors and facilities in a network would get some sort of compensation from the network based on patient visits/procedures or similar. To avoid time consuming chronically ill patients, these networks (esp. on the open market) would likely screen for preexisting conditions and reject those that require substantial care for chronic conditions (this would be legal, these concierge networks are not insurance).
Funded at the same rate as the NHS in the UK, it would cost around a trillion dollars per year. Funded at the same rate as Canada, it would cost 1.6 trillion per year.
For scale, the USA currently spends 3.5 trillion dollars on healthcare. To adopt one of these other models, would SAVE between 2 and 2.5 trillion dollars and provide healthcare for all.
You claim something is impossible when your neighbor is doing it already. That's a hell of a logical failing on your part.
So what you're saying is that Medicare for All will be over 2 trillion LESS than what we would currently spend AND cover more people?
Sounds like an improvement to me. I suppose some hospitals will have to cut back on their fancy water features and overpriced interior decorations, and a lot of useless paper-pushers will have to get new jobs, but what else is new?
Thanks for confirming, Medicare for All is a winner!
Trump won 47%. Brexit won on false information also, just like Trump. Outright lies - and Russia influenced both campaigns to weaken its adversaries. They MADE you "desperate" with campaigns of disinformation, you morons fell for it.
And continue to. There is no emergency at the border that wasn't there 10, 20 and 30 years ago. In fact, it's 1/3 of that at MOST. Trump is a liar, even Republicans voted to say so. Face it.
Doing "something" doesn't help. More coal mines and factories have closed under Trump than under Obama in a similar period. That's not a fluke. His China policy has put big dents in US importers. That's not a policy.
Shutting down the government to steal money from other programs without direct Congressional support is not governance as the Constitution intended.
Yet oddly, that's precisely what happened in all other countries. Doctors, hospitals, nurses, all were on board with universal health care.
Acts were passed. Doctors are *still* very well paid. You know who isn't?
Hospitals themselves, they're run by the state. Drug manufacturers, they're still filthy rich -- just not as insanely filthy rich as in the US. Everyone is making a little *less* profit... yet mysteriously they're all happy with it.
I'd suggest something to you -- do you think living in, say Sweden, or Australia, or Canada, or the UK, or Germany is like living in hell? That the lives of people are impoverished? What's happened in these places, is that there are still "well off" and "not so well off" people, but the division is not as grand, as stark.
Se my self-answer above.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
How's that dishonesty problem, eh GOP? You keep moving the goalposts for Democratic spending proposals just to tender YOUR DEFICITS. Obama saves the day, Trump goes and fumbles it harder.
There's no fixing Republican intransigent deficit spending and subsequent lying. You're just dishonest bad-at-math cunts - any fiscal conservatives left HATE TRUMP'S IDIOTIC TRAITOR GUTS for what he's done!
You have to be willingly stupid to go along with blowing hundreds of millions of dollars if not billions just to shut down the government to try to FORCE something that even your OWN party doesn't support close to that level!
YOUR OWN-GOALS ARE KILLING THE COUNTRY, MORONS. There are only so many Bill Clintons and Obamas to bail you spending junkies out of prison, pretty soon we're going to LEAVE YOU THERE FOR GOOD.
Communists have merged with Luddites and open borders fanatics to form the absolute antithesis of success.
Trust me, none of those countries are socialist. I grew up in some of them, I’ve lived for the majority of my life there, I emigrated to the US partially because growing socialist policies were making work-life unsustainable.
Yes, they have plenty of socialist policies, partially due to the EU but they’re also some of the highest taxed countries and you still have to work a lot to pay taxes that support those that don’t.
What they don’t have: guaranteed income (which is a basic tenet of socialism/communism), guaranteed jobs, guaranteed housing. They do have those for immigrants and professional victims but not for their own population. They have government funded healthcare, except they don’t pay for the majority of your healthcare costs and you still are required to get private insurance.
However socialist movements in those countries have led to unstable economies and a growing tension over the last 2 decades between immigrants and natives to the point that the only reason local governments in Belgium, France and the Netherlands aren’t currently extreme-right (yes, Nazi-style parties) are huge coalitions between every other party to prevent them coming to power. Those coalitions however make the government, especially in Belgium and the Netherlands but also in France extremely volatile and unstable.
But keep dreaming about your socialist countries.
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That worked wonders for Germany.
On second thought, maybe you should.
Nice to see some pandering to the horse drawn carriage fanatics from a brain-dead Trotskyite. Maybe she can fund some steam engine wrenching in the campaign.
A robot tax is just a consumption tax but a crude and difficult to administer one. A "robot" is really anything that increases productivity through automation - like drill press or a CNC machine or an ordering kiosk at McDonalds.
Just replace most federal taxes with a VAT tax, perhaps coupled with a UBI. Individuals will decide if/how much they want to work to "have nicer things". Business will decide if it will be more cost effective to buy a floor scrubbing machine or pay for more hours of human labor to use a mop and pail, etc. In the case of the floor scrubber, the cost of labor is obviously a factor -- raising the minimum wage is likely to increase the number of businesses that choose the floor scrubbing machine over humans with mops and pails while raising the UBI is likely to decrease the supply of low skill labor so raise the cost of such labor and also increase the uptake rate of floor scrubbing machines.
The consumer always pays the taxes. When a corporation it taxed, it is just collecting the tax from the end consumer rather than the government doing it directly - rather like sales tax.
.... Traced your IP to 'Justice Democrats' headquarters. You cast Sandy as a Congress critter and feed her all her lines. You bragged about it. She's an actress playing a role for you. She doesn't know her ass from her elbow.
Now you're trying to prop her up with transparent astro-turfing.
You know she can't run, right?
AOC is ok with taxing other people's robots - simply because she and her supporters do not have any....yet.
What do her policies look like once everyone has a robot? I saw Samsung's personal assistant robots at CES this year. Samsung wants to have these things in everyone's homes cleaning, cooking, reminding you to take your medication....etc.
Eventually AOC will tax your robots. After all, those robots will replace tradespeople and other service type jobs in people's homes. Once everyone has robots her plan starts to look a lot like a futuristic version of today's Venezuela.
Socialist taxation and redistribution of entire economies - even with robots - is still a bad idea.
AOC has said some many things I don't agree with, as a devoted science and logical mind, but this, this was good and this is the stuff, the people need to hear and understand.
None of those countries are socialist. The Prime Minister of Denmark had to explain that to the very intelligent kids at Harvard not all that long ago. All of the Scandinavian countries are capitalist countries with high income tax rates that are paid for by a larger percentage of population as well as a VAT. Also, up until recently, they all had much lower corporate income tax rates than the U.S. They didn't raise theirs either, we just cut ours to a similar level that they have.
Those countries also have several various other factors that are distinct to each, but also not socialist. For example, Sweden has a voucher system for schools and as a result a large number of charter schools. Norway doesn't have a government mandated minimum wage. I wonder if you'd like to see the U.S. implement those socialist policies?
I suppose if you want to relabel free market capitalism as socialism I can't really stop you, but you may want to wrap some copper wire around Marx and put a magnet on his tombstone so that you can generate electricity while he spins in his grave.
Their countries are small monocultures that benefit from oil subsidies and live with lower quality service with longer wait times.
Nothing is free.
They won't have a choice. Neither will pharmaceutical companies or health insurers. Its the only way to provide a level of health care service for every human being in the US without the US middle class being taxed out of existence. It really troubles me that people do not understand that US health care is too inefficient with its cost control, and that is the secret key to universal health care.
Costs won't be sufficiently driven down when everyone is covered. What has to happen is that the pay by service model has to be eliminated, and the medicare model has to become much, much more efficient and practical than it currently is. Doctors have to cease authorizing expensive, redundant diagnostics in order to CYA, and to some extent the current medical civil lawsuit environment has to change. Finally, US citizens have to stop believing they are entitled to a level of medical care they could not otherwise pay for.
Palin called them "death panels", but she was too dense to understand that there were death panels before Obamacare, they were called health insurance companies.
You're impressed by someone that picked in a casting call?
Some will. However, some doctors will just retire and fewer people will become doctors which will result in more doctor shortages.
Doctor shortage will never happen. Health insurance companies will merely authorize more "physician assistants" with a less costly educational level, and they will administer to 80% of medical situations with a near zero increase in bad outcomes. (Meanwhile, PAs will be paid less, and insurance companies and hospitals will be pocketing the difference. The way that tech companies pocket the profit from technological innovation when reducing the employee count.)
The level of doctor training is really only necessary in a smaller percentage of challenging cases. Meanwhile AI automation will be taking over diagnostics and treatment of patients, and physician assistants will become mere 1st level help desk agents, moving the more intractable cases to the next tier of support specialists (doctors).
The rest of what you say is disturbingly plausible.
How much of the large sums gained by a few comes from evil behavior that govt should be guarding against? Study history of many large fortunes, and many (but not all I believe) have such in their history.
Consider too that corporations are allowed to buy and not pay for things out of owners' assets. When they get the benefit of not paying debts, sems to me that makes it everyone's issue to see that mgt does not take actions that may cause the corp to fail. Paying managers too much (or stupidly) can give rise to such results.
Point is tho that one should not just pretend all assets should belong to govt (or a Party). If you want to deal with what seems excess wealth to a few, base your measures on behavior and principles, not just greed by political types. The communists among us (who sometimes say "socialist" like the ones in the good ol' USSR did) just will act as another kleptocracy. It ruined USSR, and if those lessons be forgotten, consider Venezuela and various others. Mind, a $30,000/year bureaucrat is likely to be as wise as a comparably paid low level clerk, and should not be trusted to provide wisdom in resource allocation. AOC has a much higher rate of pay in congress and I saw reports she has been involved in grabbing $800,000+ in illegal campaign money conversion. Has she ever held productive emplyment?
Has Mr. Gibson ever considered the problems of replicating the behavior of our senses in a general form? (I have, and can assure you it is a very nontrivial problem.). Before you conclude robots will take over, think on that. An illustration of the difficulty can be seen in self driving cars. Just try and run such on the back roads of, say, Pennsylvania outside the major cities. (Kindly evacuate the areas before such tests though. I think a high butcher bill should be avoided.)
What did you all expect? She's got a degree in economics and has no clue about how economics works.
Or how anything else works, really.
because monopolization will keep them high. Mergers and Acquisitions mean there's less and less competition.
Moreover companies like Apple have show that you can be very, very profitable selling expensive products and ignoring the low end.
As someone who lives cheaply (I've got a kid in college and it's killing my finances, couldn't save anything because I got wiped in the 2008 crash) I can tell you that inflation is around 4.5% despite record production numbers and higher per employee farm and manufacturing outputs (I'm not saying "Productivity" because those states are poisoned by retail where the employees have pretty much maxed out their ability to move product).
TL;DR; don't count on deflation to keep prices low in the modern economy. It doesn't work that way anymore if it ever did.
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I was a pipelayer until 1999 when I tore up my knee. In the southeast, the guy running the tractor would make between $18/hr and $25/hr, white guys in the ditch were maybe $12-$15/hr, hispanic or black were maybe $9-$13, somewhere in there (yes, it was straight rascist. Don't bitch at me about it, I was one of the guys standing in the ditch with a shovel). There would typically be about 3 or 4 labor guys for each tractor guy, although I saw one crew with about 10 laborers paired with one tractor operator.
I would guess that crews are the same or smaller now. I am sure they make a little more money. I doubt many of them make a lot in any context that includes software engineers. People (or businesses) that own tractors can make a lot of money.
The issue with the benefits of automation is similar, I think, with the issue with the benefits of the tractor. The benefits accrue to the owner of the automation, same as the benefits of the tractor. If factory laborers bought the robots that replaced their jobs, it would be natural to agree that they should keep those profits while relaxing at home. Unfortunately, it's the factory/shop/store owners that are buying them and the laborers might be in trouble.
It seems morally straightforward that the people who took the risk of investing in automation should receive the rewards, but that results in a seriously fubared society. So here I sit waiting for some insightful commentary, 'cause damned if I know the answer.
That's not what he meant. Trump is going to use her to gin up support for his campaign. All he has to do is say, "I'm not AOC!" and he will win. Game, set, match.
If you can’t actually cite anything then why should I believe you.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
12 years. From your own link: “Her comments are in reference to a United Nations-backed climate report, published late last year, that determined the effects of climate change to be irreversible and unavoidable if carbon emissions are not reined in over the next 12 years.”
How is your characterization of what she said at best dishonest
As for how will pay for it? You did actually cite what she says. Her actual Twitter responses say much more. Why do you have to be dishonest?
If I research the rest of the links will I find them of equal dishonesty?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
That’s not what he said either. He said “Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy,” Rasmussen said.
The Nordic model relies on high taxes which funds a cradle to grave system. Most capitalists would scoff at that kind of wealth redistribution. For example healthcare and education is free for everyone. People call those same ideas of AOC and Bernie Sanders “socialist.” But when they describe the Nordic model they are not “socialist”. Which is it?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Well she was selected as a candidate in a casting call. She's just an actor like Trump.
You know, as weird as it sounds, I loved being a pipelayer. I loved being strong and working really hard. I enjoyed the challenge. I worked (mostly) with pretty good people.
Unfortunately, I traded my health for a paycheck. My knees are shot, and I have arthritis in my hands (not too bad yet, but still).
The two saddest words in the English language: If only...
So when people call healthcare and free education ideas socialist of AOC, do you correct them and explain that these countries have them too. Or do you join them?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
What our country needs are waves of able-bodied, healthy adults having 2.1 children between the ages of 18-25, doing everything they can to sustain their own health so that they won't die horribly when their lives come to some fairly-predictable end at around the age of 65-75 or so. Enough generations like that, and medical care will (overall) become cheaper and easier to afford. Then we can think about taking care of the edge cases - the elderly, the chronically ill, the drug addicts, the poor-lifestylers - using the largess that would come from having a majority-healthy, motivated population.
How do you achieve that goal? The best way would be for Americans to simply choose that life for themselves. Our consumer economy would tank (less beer, wine, and liquor sold; no cigarette/vape sales; a crashing drug economy; probably fewer TV/video game/cell phone sales), but our demand for medical care would drop like a rock, keeping prices low. Oh, if only we could all be clean, decent people! How boring that would be. There would be far fewer people in need of help, though, and those receiving help would probably need it for shorter durations (since they might recover from poverty instead of being mired in it for generations).
If people want to supply things like free clothing; shelter; food; and medical care to the needy, then the first thing they must be willing to do is to make sacrifices of themselves for the overall betterment of society. We have to be better people to make a system like that work. Right now, we have a greedy and entitled population that often refuses to accept responsibility for its own actions. We want some elected representative to take care of our problems by redistributing wealth or changing some rules/regulations. What we don't want to do is to improve ourselves at the same time. In any collectivist society, we WILL be called upon the serve the public good. May as well start now before our system of government demands it of us.
Make the commitment to cost less to feed/clothe/shelter. Get hurt less often doing stupid things. Keep up your own health to make more room for the sick at the doctor. Pay your taxes (those things are supposed to support the commons and help those less fortunate than yourselves). Give to charities where you can. Help your fellows (family, friends, neighbors, coworkers) achieve the same state where possible if you see them "falling off the wagon". Work hard to own larger and larger shares of "the means of production", be it in the form of publicly-traded stocks or other investments, so people like YOU (and not some sociopath) are more likely to call the shots on corporate boards. Demand long-term vision from your corporations and local government to whatever extent is humanly possible.
With enough people who can pull their own weight with very little outside support, any system of government can work. A society built of manic, self-destructive sociopaths is doomed to failure.
Yep, she confirmed that the world is going to end in less than twelve years.
Like Al Gore, the mere mention of AOC triggers the lizard brain in right wingers. It's embarrassing - for you.
And the people in Venezuela and North Korea only go hungry because of the sanctions of the US ... seems like a failure of capitalism to me.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
All in Europe and Scandinavia ... plenty of Asians, too. E.g. Laos and Vietnam, and China.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Marx was a marxist, not a communist or socialist. And you americans keep mixing up the difference between the later two. While your explanation is "half right" regarding socialism, it is wrong regarding your definition of which countries are "capitalist". ... we definitely don't consider us "capitalist".
The correct term is "social market democracies"
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Or at least an actor. She was hired by the young turks to get elected and spew their garbage.
You're a moron Huxster.
One of those "investments" could simply be to buy into a non-inflationary currency (foreign or possibly crypto). Andrew Yang has suggested paying for it with VAT, which sounds like a good idea..
I'm a pro-Trump constitutional conservative and I'm actually agreeing with what she's saying here. Don't let your head explode....haha...
Yeah, the problem is that the current Medicare spending rates are ridiculous - thats the point that is trying to be made.
You don't just need to increase Medicare spending, you need to reform the entire thing.
You already spend more per head of *population* (and not per person actually covered) on Medicare and Medicaid than many western countries spend on socialised medicine for their entire populations - that signifies a problem that you aren't going to spend your way out of, and it also signifies a fundamental issue with the way healthcare is provided in your country.
And *thats* the fundamental problem - you are expecting for-profit entities to supply healthcare at reasonable cost, and they aren't. We have all read and heard about the ridiculous discussions that go on between care providers and insurance providers about costs and billing.
The government should run its own healthcare providers, and its own hospitals, and employ its own doctors, nurses and other staff.
But thats pretty unacceptable to Americans for some reason - apparently, only the military are allowed to be a massive government employer in such a manner.
The robot tax already exists and has been in place for ages: It's called "dividend". Unfortunately, you're not getting any of that money.
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Suck, consume, and eventually eat Kamel-Toe Harris's cock.
fucking camel Toe bitch..
they can both eat each other, like Geralidine Ferrio, Absolutely No chance in hell, even with Mondale she still blunderfucked the situation. Why is it so different this time around?
Dildo Eating bitches, let them along with msmash get off at a local california bathhouse.. (not the russian, greek, or roman ones)
> Trust me
Having read the rest of your post (which I regret now): no, not the least.
> Iâ(TM)ve lived for the majority of my life there
whatever "there" means.
> growing socialist policies were making work-life unsustainable
Now tell us, what's your "there" [NOTE TO USIANS: Sweden and Switzerland are two different countries, with quite diffetent laws and (GASP!) different languages)
>they have plenty of socialist policies, partially due to the EU
Say WHAT? You have no idea what you're talking about, have you?
> What they donâ(TM)t have: guaranteed income (which is a basic tenet of socialism/communism), guaranteed jobs, guaranteed housing
Tell me one country in the world which can give that -- and I'll move.
> However socialist movements in those countries have led to unstable economies [...]
Jeeeez. Stop reading that much Breitbart and go take your meds. Alternative facts mucho?
Now let the trolls pile on -- it does not change the fact that Capitalism is failing (and threatening to take the world with it).
For those too ignorant to learn from history, the streets of Socialism are lined with 100 million dead citizens.
Go ahead. Tell me another horror story about threatening Capitalism is, because you're certainly failing to convince Common Sense.
then people should work less... not simply not work.
The solution is to use more people to do the same jobs and decrease the amount that people work.
If you're a truck driver and I can replace 6 drivers with 1 trucks which can drive themselves (drivers working one week on, one week off and in 8 hour driving shifts... and on truck working 100%)... then as more of these self-driving trucks become available, we'll progressively decrease the number of hours you drive. So maybe, you have 8 weeks off, one week on instead.
The same can go for factories, waste management, etc...
As we decrease our dependence on people, we need to take the limited number of jobs that still require humans and simply give more people more time off.
The issue is how we compensate people.
Right now, we have an overly commercialized society.
Let's consider Hallmark... a company which has contributed more to the downfall of western society than most.
Hallmark has made it so that there's now commercialism surrounding pretty much every day of the year. We have greeting cards and gifts and custom teddy bears and flower pots and wrapping paper for practically every day of the year.
This has been very good for capitalism since producing those products consumes worker hours across hundreds of countries in hundreds of industries. Consider that someone mines an industrial diamond to coat the edges of a boring blade to drill oil which is refined and distributed by boats, planes, trains and automobiles to make the components of a spark plug that operates a truck to deliver a replacement motor for a milling wheel to produce pigments to mix with ink to be placed in printers to produce labels to mark the destinations of where to ship palettes of greeting cards.
If we need more varieties of greeting cards, we'll provide more jobs across the entire scale of the globe, from the poorly paid minor (practically or even really a slave) in the Congo through the stock traders on wall street gambling on commodities with regards to paper production.
Each greeting card printed doesn't employ every person in the chain... in fact, Hallmark may be responsible for many jobs directly and justifying 100% employment for maybe even as much a a million people around the world... but there is a cycle which exists in this vane market.
Consider that we don't need "National Secretaries' Puppies Day" greeting cards custom printed with numbers to tell us that your boss remembers how old his secretary's puppy is.
But by simply making a single card generalized to simply celebrate the day without specific ages of the puppies, there are from 3-19 different varieties which will not be produced, marketed, sold, waste managed, etc... in addition, they might have 16 different designs and patterns that have been mass produced.
The impact of reducing the number of days celebrated for no real reason, would hurt many jobs all around the world.
Consider that Hallmark could instead install a high end printers with embossing and laser cutting abilities that reduce ink consumption considerably, eliminates the vast majority of jobs related to shipping, etc... they could even, as the day approach print one kind of each greeting card and each card is scanned and sold at the counter, a new one could be printed and then restocked on the shelf. As such, they could eliminate massive amounts of waste, they could cut costs dramatically. The ripple effect it would have globally would be a virtual disaster to the job markets.
So, we would simply need less people to work.
Not only that, but as people as a whole earn less money, they would be less likely to waste money on greeting cards for stupid holidays. The demand would drop and Hallmark would eventually become a design company that would install their printers at Walmart and Amazon. The number of cards produced would drop to a less nonsensical amount. We would buy "Get well soon", "Happy Birthday", "We mourn your loss", etc... cards or even forgo c
AOC's biggest flaw imo is that her proposals are more like wishlists then actual plans, lacking details and steps to achieve them. The GND suffers from that problem, her proposal to tax anyone making over 10 mil at 70% a misunderstanding of European policies, etc. Its hard to feel assured by someone suffering from Underpants Gnome Syndrome. At this rate, she'll just be another politician that promised a lot and underdelivered.
What they don’t have: guaranteed income (which is a basic tenet of socialism/communism), guaranteed jobs, guaranteed housing. They do have those for immigrants and professional victims but not for their own population.
Stop your lying. Nothing of that is true.
However socialist movements in those countries have led to unstable economies and a growing tension over the last 2 decades between immigrants and natives to the point that the only reason local governments in Belgium, France and the Netherlands aren’t currently extreme-right (yes, Nazi-style parties) are huge coalitions between every other party to prevent them coming to power. Those coalitions however make the government, especially in Belgium and the Netherlands but also in France extremely volatile and unstable.
Again, lies. The economies of the 'socialist' countries you mention are extremely stable in comparison to other countries in the world, just look at the growth rates in recent years. The governments as well. In fact, in the Netherlands, the coalitions have been slightly right leaning for decades now.
The rise of populism is a worldwide phenomenon fueled by sensationalism and geopolitical strife and is clearly not a result of 'socialist movements'.
You do understand the following https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... have existed and there was no private property(Including your home) and they had SOCIALIST right there in the name. Nod if you can accept reality. Or is that not pure enough ? Should they have tatooed it on the forehead aswell maybe ?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
the USSR/Venezuela/NKorea are/were SOCIALIST, not Norway/Denmark. Welfare state is NOT sufficient for socialism (or socialists for that matter).
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Or sheâ(TM)s mentally retarded. Ether way, itâ(TM)s not even worth taking time to deconstruct her babbling anymore. Her ideas are completely incoherent and suggest a total misunderstanding of basic economics. Put into effect, her policies would drive the United States to ruins and all of us living here into poverty.
Occasional Cortex may be cuter than Bernie, but that doesn't make socialism work any better. Just like it's close se cousin, communism, the ideas sound great right up until the smash head first into reality. Human nature does not work that way.
In Bernie's case, though, he can at least debate and defend his ideas. Have you ever heard AOC trying to answer real questions? Not puff pieces where she gets to use answers written by someone else, but questions that reveal what she, herself, actually knows?
The woman is an idiot. She's a puppet, playing a role. Her handlers mostly manage to keep her out of situations where she can screw up the script, but it's obvious if you're paying attention.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
When it natiinalizes the stuff, it is no longer capitalism. Capitalism is free people doing their thing.
If what you describe is capitalism, then so is a thief fencing his goods to a shady pawn broker.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Ubi is predicated by its proponents as a more efficient way to deliver funds that are largely already going to the poor through other benefits, aid, assistance, etc. but largely without the inefficiencies of bureaucracy (not sure how they assume a multi trillion $ program isn't going to spawn its own massive bureaucracy but let's just assume they're correct).
The problem is, unfortunately, that poverty *largely* coincides with stupid.
Flame all you like, but I'm not just talking about raw intelligence; I'm talking about the collection of abilities that can make one successful. Self control, willingness to defer gratification, patience, self reflection...all come together to predict pretty convincingly who will be at least moderately successful, and who not.
Give $12000/ year to impulsive people with little self control, I'm going to invest in alcohol, cigarettes, tennis shoes, and flashy cars because that's what they're going to spend it on (and this isn't just talking out of my ass, I have twofold real world proof: 1) in the statistics of lottery winners: do you know what % end up poorer than before they "won"?; 2) the closest current system to enduring ubi today are US Indian tribes with successful casinos. I know someone in the disbursement office of a very successful one where every member of that tribe gets $50k/month. A startling number of people are literally waiting outside that office the first of every month, desperate for a check because they're broke.).
And that brings me back to my first point: if you're handing these people who have demonstrated a poor ability to make life choices already (they're poor), and then expect them to suddenly have the wisdom to invest in medical insurance, to invest in retirement, to save for college...they won't. And if, as is presupposed, all their other benefits are stripped, then basically they're all going to be dead within a month.
-Styopa
So when AOC proposes Universal Healthcade and Free Education based on the models these countries have, you don’t call her ideas socialist? Do you point it out to others? Or are they only socialist when she proposes them?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
No she never did. She cited scientific studies that the world might have only 12 years to do something about climate change. Big difference.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
While I don't agree with your description it's true that immigration challenges the social democratic model. When it really took hold in the 1950s and 1960s there was very low immigration/emigration and a strong sense of unity as a people. "We" had kids to raise, kids to put through college, elderly to take care of, some of "us" were sick or unemployed or mentally challenged and so on. Basically a notion that we'd take care of each other as a big family and that over a lifetime we'd need many of those services ourselves in different phases of life or for limited periods. And if you weren't sick or unemployed or handicapped you should just be happy life smiled at you.
For some this still isn't a problem, once you're here you're "adopted" and even though immigrants are a net loss - we have statistics to prove refugees and people seeking asylum generally cost us more in social services than they ever manage to pay back in taxes - it's an economic burden we decided to take on. For others immigration itself is polarizing for cultural reasons and then social democracy becomes a transfer of wealth from "us" to "them". That instead of being a safety net to catch a few that fall we fill it up with people who don't know the language with poor education and work skills who quite frankly often find the net quite comfortable and hope that some of them will get up and out of it.
Lots of immigrants are hard working, nice people who just wanted to get out of the shit they were in. Unfortunately some of them also want to drag the shit with them, apart from being a war torn hellhole they like their burqa clad women and Sharia law. Many are grateful, some are acting like they found suckers to leech from and sometimes with a side of racism too. Many enjoy our freedoms, some think we're decadent, sinful and morally corrupt and don't want to get tainted by our society. It still baffles my mind how some people can look at what they can have here and decide to go off to fight for IS in Syria. And now they want us to go collect the wives and kids they left behind...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Isn't this where you remove insurance companies from the equation as they add absolutely nothing to actual healthcare, but demand far more money than what is required.
Capitalism isn't the problem. Corruption is the problem. We have more tracking tools than ever. We need a transparency revolution. The tint is on the wrong side of the windows. We, the people, should expect to watch our government and expect that it can't watch us. If you don't fix the corruption, socialism will help nothing (and probably make things worse). Who the fuck wants to live in two-tier, bullshit "socialism" with an inner party and the plebs? It's been tried, and it's a recipe for widespread death and suffering. That's what corrupt socialism will bring. Corrupt capitalism is shit too. So, we need to fix the corruption. We need to get rid of debt-based currency, first and foremost.
When a country like America sactions a small nation so there source of income oil can not be produced then claim it is the countries ruler at fault and even the people there fall for and news even here wants to talk about power outage.
A click of the mouse is all this took.
Freedom Dividend from Yang's platform directly addresses this automation job loss concern. I have never supported a candidate before now because of this man's well-spoken platform. It caters to data and tech nerds while reaching middle America. Vote Yang in 2020 Democratic Primary
So she spouts off, and then has to later clarify what she says, right? In other words - as the original GP stated - she doesn't think deeply when she speaks, and she has to later refine and clarify her statements after thinking about it. That's the point. I am glad you have come to the same conclusion!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Which country in Europe has a socialist economy? Scandinavia is unabashedly capitalist in economic models. They have a strong social safety net on which they spend their taxes, but their economic systems are capitalist, full-stop.
China started to grow when Deng Xiaoping implemented capitalist reforms into the socialist economic model, but it's since stalled and is on the cusp of collapse because of centralized command-and-control (as required by socialism) of the banks, telecom, and others. Laos and Vietnam? They thrive because they are cheaper resource bases than China. So I will grant that socialism IS great for exploiting people...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
So it won't be "Medicare For All", it is "tear down the entire thing - Government and private funded - and build something brand-new that we don't have now nor can explain at this time"... That's a pretty big promise...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Trust me, none of those countries are socialist.
Here's a problem we're having in the US. A Policy Proposer will propose a policy idea which will then be rebutted by a Trump Supporter. And then Trump Supporter ends up resolving their own problem with the policy, but not realizing that they did. They do so because they had a rebuttal to every point the Policy Proposer made, so they think that they won the debate. The Trump Supporters act like the other side is trying to get the US to be a socialist state regardless of the details, they just want the label to be socialist. The Policy Proposers care less about the label and more about the details.
PP: We should do X.
TS: But that's Socialism! You'll ruin us like Venezuela.
PP: Venezuela doesn't really do X, but the Scandinavian countries do and we can see that it works for them.
TS: But those countries aren't Socialist. See, what a bad idea you have. Check mate, I won.
No, you're just another piece-of-shit internet troll who thinks you're edgy and cool when in reality you're Unfunny, boring, and stupid. Go throw yourself into a woodchipper, you're more useful as mulch than you'll ever be as a human being.
Why would anyone even listen to that ignoramus, much less analyze her blatherings?
But that's not what Fox News says it is. Everything left of unregulated free market capitalism is socialist.
You can't just debate the deffinition of socialism in the US like that, because one political party defines it as an evil clown that eats your children, the other takes it to mean "like parts of Europe"
You have to go read the whole thread you are posting in, you might not be arguing with the side you thought you were. Like all the European countries are not really socialist comments, who are you trying to convince, the people that don't really care about the label, they mean to catch up with European social policies, or are you arguing with the evil clown side?
Thanks for that explanation. That's how Ocasio-Cortez seems to me.
Thanks. LynnwoodRooster, for that explanation. That's how Ocasio-Cortez seems to me.
I posted a previous comment, but it wasn't shown as a reply to your comment.
The problem with the US healthcare system that makes it so expensive is that there is an entire industry built around handling payments and approval of granting healthcare that drastically pushes the costs up coupled with the fact insurance based models always increase prices (vets for example will often charge more to someone with insurance than someone without, because they perceive that the insurer can afford higher prices and will simply pay them).
When you remove the duplication of departments from different private suppliers and centralise it, when you move the insurance model, and the entire industry that bloats US healthcare, you can trivially reduce the cost of the US healthcare system. That's why the US healthcare system costs so much more than everyone else's whilst not offering sufficient benefits to justify that cost; despite the US costing more than twice as much as the UK's NHS to run for example, the US still has higher levels of infant mortality, that is, the NHS is delivering more healthy babies per head than the US can for a fraction of the cost of doing so.
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The USSR, actually.
Went from being a century behind to just about two decades behind the developed countries. Also from 20% literacy to over 99%. Even had their share of firsts. If that isn't success, then what is?
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
they don't. Their loans are insured and they're too big to fail. And if all else fails the ruling class takes care of their own. How do you think Trump survived multiple bankruptcies and bad business decisions and always came out a millionaire?
The world does not operate on fairness. The sooner you accept that the sooner we can start actually fixing things.
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You can use facts to prove anything even remotely true - Homer J. Simpson.
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That wasn’t a yes or no answer. Do you can her idea socialist? Do you correct others if you don’t consider them socialist?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
And the people in Venezuela and North Korea only go hungry because of the sanctions of the US
citation needed. actually, maybe a handful.
I thought the whole "unwilling to work" interpretation of parts of the Green New deal was supposed to have been a terrible mistake? Sounds like she basically confirmed that it is an intended goal of her policies. Sounds like a great dream, but it has no chance of happening in reality (at least for the next few hundred years). It would take an insane change in economics, technology and society to effect such a realty. You've got a better chance of solving world hunger, creating a lasting peace in the middle east and inventing an economic fusion reactor by 2020.
People have been losing their jobs to automation for centuries. We somehow always seem to find more ways to find work.
Yes, there is stress for people who have to retrain themselves. We tech people have to retrain ourselves every couple of years, as the technology moves on. We know that stress well! But it is possible to learn new things, even for non-tech people, if they really want to. Needing to earn money has a powerful way of motivating people to move on.
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Trust me, none of those countries are socialist. I grew up in some of them, I’ve lived for the majority of my life there, I emigrated to the US partially because growing socialist policies were making work-life unsustainable.
Yes, they have plenty of socialist policies, partially due to the EU but they’re also some of the highest taxed countries and you still have to work a lot to pay taxes that support those that don’t.
What they don’t have: guaranteed income (which is a basic tenet of socialism/communism), guaranteed jobs, guaranteed housing. They do have those for immigrants and professional victims but not for their own population. They have government funded healthcare, except they don’t pay for the majority of your healthcare costs and you still are required to get private insurance.
However socialist movements in those countries have led to unstable economies and a growing tension over the last 2 decades between immigrants and natives to the point that the only reason local governments in Belgium, France and the Netherlands aren’t currently extreme-right (yes, Nazi-style parties) are huge coalitions between every other party to prevent them coming to power. Those coalitions however make the government, especially in Belgium and the Netherlands but also in France extremely volatile and unstable.
But keep dreaming about your socialist countries.
Seems to me you only lived there while you were too young to understand what was going on :-) :-)
You also seem confused, there is a difference between socialism and democratic socialism, the system implemented by the majority of countries in the world. You also seem to be confused as to why the immigrants "issue" has been happening (the turn to the right is a world wide issue and has nothing to do with those "implemented social policies", more with education and fear of the unknown)
And than that bit about the EU shows us you really don't have a clue what you are talking about (don't worry, most americans don't seem to understand the EU, a whole lot of Europeans don't either so that doesn't help), so let's say that's the final nail in your coffin.
Funny read though, try again sometime.
You'd have a point if this was the first country looking to create a national health service. As it isn't, there are plenty of examples. It's not something unknown or unexplainable - it's both known and explained in great depth.
Not to mention, tearing down the whole thing might be the best way to fix it and is worth considering. When a system is fundamentally broken enough, a full rebuild is the best option. I'd like to think enough software geeks would be able to relate to that.
Trust me, none of those countries are socialist.
Highly debateable, and most people who think like that seems to think that a country stops beeing socialist as soon as it adopts some minor capitalist points.
What they don’t have: guaranteed income (which is a basic tenet of socialism/communism), guaranteed jobs, guaranteed housing. They do have those for immigrants and professional victims but not for their own population. They have government funded healthcare, except they don’t pay for the majority of your healthcare costs and you still are required to get private insurance.
Also incorrect, atleast for 4/6 of the mentioned countries. Couldnt tell you about the last two. These points are also cloaked in verbal mists. Welfare is a thing, but its not conditional towards a lack of job/income - instead its conditional upon the ability to house and feed yourself. If your family, spouse, roommate or whatever pays your bills, then you dont get the welfare since as far as the state is concerned you dont need any. If you try to spazz out and become a homeless junkie then you will be taken to treatment by social workers, by force if necessary.
No one is getting denied medical treatment over finances. Unless perhaps you mean cosmetic surgery or vetrinary treatments.
However socialist movements in those countries have led to unstable economies and a growing tension over the last 2 decades between immigrants and natives to the point that the only reason local governments in Belgium, France and the Netherlands aren’t currently extreme-right (yes, Nazi-style parties) are huge coalitions between every other party to prevent them coming to power.
You correctly spotted the issue, but incorrectly assigned blame. This is the biggest issue that modern europe faces. The tension among its populations are massive, and escalating wildly, to the point where even the police just abandons entire neighborhoods. The political will that led to the situation belongs to pretty much all mainstream parties - not just socialists. And the coalitions you mention are showing the true colors of the european leadership. They are mock choices used to make people think they have a democracy when the truth is much uglier. The right-wing parties are simply more of the same. Just another mock choice on the stage for the clueless masses to engage in.
People today think they are wiser than all generations come before them, yet from my perspective the leash is tighter than ever before. Mark my words, things will get much worse. But maybe im a raving loon and there is no-one behind the curtain.
Given that the USSR imploded spectacularly after bankrupting themselves accomplishing all that, I don't think the USSR is a good example.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Yes, and all of the Scandinavian countries land squarely on the capitalist side of the isle even if they do have a fair number of social programs. One of the main tenets of socialism, the land and means of production being controlled by the state, is not true in any Scandinavian country.
AOC has a degree in economics. She knows damn well what reality is
You don't want me to start pulling up posts from her twitter feed, do you? Seriously, this woman seems to be in a competition with Trump for who can say the stupidest shit on twitter. This is the woman who thought that if Amazon didn't get a 3 billion tax credit and didn't come to New York that there would be 3 billion more to spend on city services.
Typical rich white guy response. 'We made their lives better. We eliminated their strife'
You fail to acknowledge that, while you did eliminate a brutal and physically taxing task, you also removed a source of income. A single, last resort, source of income for which you did not create a substitute or replacement.
NO! Cotton pickers never became the gin builders/maintainers. They are too unskilled, uneducated, and untrained(untrainable) to ever have ANY hope of getting those jobs. But, far more than that, there were only one hundredth as many of those "better" jobs, as the jobs that were eliminated. This is the same issue we face with automation today.
Automation didn't create a better life for all. Automation created a jobless welfare-n!gger who is even more angery now that he has no better prospects than welfare and crime. At least before, his shitty job provided some income and relative autonomy, and a vague sense of pride and or hope.
What you describe as "a difficult transition for them" was actually the end of all employment and the certainty of dying young, penniless, and without hope. The next generation may have "transitioned", but the cotton-pickin-n!ggers were FUCKED! They were fucked even harder than they were with their previous miserable cotton-picking-jobs/lives.
But, you're still patting yourself on the back as if their devastation and destruction was noble, or as if your worthless-ass had any hand in said "nobility".
Edit; Apparently, the fucking stupid "lameness filter" doesn't like the use of the letter "i" in the word n!gger. LAME
Are more people trying to move from the EU to the US or from the US to the EU?
What do you think?
Wait, one reason we know climate change is real is the SEC? Seriously?
So I guess Trump just needs to instruct them - since they are the harbinger of all knowledge in the universe, apparently - that it is not real.
Problem solved.
I don't think that Occasional Cortex or Bernie are proposing much that has to do with socialism here. Granted, Bernie and people like him do make this way more confusing than it needs to be. In a recent interview with NPR he doubled down on the idea that by "socialism" he's talking about things like a minimum wage, or universal healthcare. But programs like these are already present in many of the nations of Europe, none of which would call themselves socialist.
If we peek into any credible textbook, history book, or even a dictionary, we'll find that socialism refers to a system in which workers own their means of production; either directly, or with the state (pretending) to serve as a legitimate proxy by owning it for them.
Like Hillary, these two might have a public and private position on the matter : P But it seems as though they're trying to pass off a tepid sort of social democracy as socialism. Which makes no sense considering that the word 'socialism' is still poison in American politics.
Show me a country that wouldn't fail in the end after a large part of the world wages an economic war against it.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
No.
We simply have to pay doctors and nurses less.
It's pretty straightforward.
The problem, is that many in this profession want to maintain their current compensation AND cover everyone. You cannot cover both.
In case anyone cares, simple graphic from 2008:
https://theincidentaleconomist...
Depends on who the Ds nominate. But it sure is looking like four more years. The Ds have marginalized all their non-nuts.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
> AOC has a degree in economics. She knows damn well what reality is.
LOL, you could probably ask ten academic economists what "reality" is and get ten different answers.
The US economy is at near full employment. Capitalism did that, not this nonsense tax-burdened utopia AOC, and I guess you too are trying to sell.
Debt doubled under Clinton, and Bush, and Obama, and it will likely double under Trump... and you know what, it will probably double under the next Democrat President after 2024 election too.
Ken
Unless they leave the medical profession and decide to take their big brains and practice law, finance, get into the hard sciences or anything else.
Go ask Canada what it looks like when you decide doctors will just accept pay cuts... you run out of doctors.
The scariest thing in the Canadian healthcare system isn't the exceptional wait for certain procedures, it's that you'll need to find a new doctor because your doctor retired.
Ken
Canada has a doctor shortage, why wouldn't America suffer the same fate if we adopt a Canadian style healthcare system?
From 2019:
https://www.thetelegram.com/in...
From 2017:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada...
Ken
FYI - the last time we 'reformed' health care in America, 2010 with the PPACA, the Obama administration guaranteed insurance companies profits. That was when his party had absolute control of both chambers of Congress plus the whitehouse, and passed their reform promising to not add 'one thin dime' to the national debt and passed their reform without partisan compromise - they passed it without republican votes.
It hasn't even been 10 years and now Democrats want to blow-up last decade's reforms along with the entire industry.
Ken
I'm not surprised that Medicare spending is so high. The people who get Medicare are those who are most likely to need more medical services. Medicaid covers people who have got into the habit of not seeing doctors until things are very bad. That habit comes from not being able to go see someone when symptoms start. Expanding Medicare, with no other changes, would lower the cost per person because most of the people added are healthier than those who currently receive it. And, most doctors over heard talk about Medicare prefer it to private insurance because the government actually pays, where the insurance companies make it difficult for them to get paid. Sounds like a win win to me.
Not sure how much it matters why anti-capitalist counties are inevitably doomed to experience such hardship. The point is, they do.
Let's say it's because they are powerless against magical US sanctions. Then US sanctions are all-powerful and any anti-capitalist country is doomed. Anti-capitalism is therefore a prescription for widespread hunger and deprivation. Or it might be something else. Either way, anti-capitalism leads to hunger and deprivation.
Why are you refusing to answer a simple question? Is it because you refuse to admit your bias in that it’s only “socialist” when you want to criticize someone else but not “socialist” when it’s convenient for you. It’s the same hypocrisy I see when conservatives went after Clinton for an extramarital affair and at the same time tell everyone that it’s a personal matter when Trump does the same thing.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
So then the policies that AOC are advocating are exactly the same as the Scandinavian model which you don’t consider socialist?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Yes 32 trillion is a very scary number, until you look at current projected costs of around 50 Trillion over the next 10 years.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/15/u-s-health-care-spending-projected-to-soar-to-5-5-trillion-by-2025/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.80c386357199
Climageddon,
You mean the UN report which stated that in 12 years it will be too late to do anything about climate change?
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/8/17948832/climate-change-global-warming-un-ipcc-report
$32.6 trillion over 10 years for Medicare For All. And that's based on Medicare spending rates, which are 60% of what hospitals and doctors charge private insurance. How do we pay for that? Do you think doctors and hospitals will all accept a 40% cut in revenue (and a much higher cut in actual profit) simply because?
Which is what they do in countries which have 100% coverage. That is why in the UK they are sweating bullets over not having enough doctors and nurses come in from poorer EU countries, because their best doctors leave for higher paying jobs in countries that don't have 100% coverage and they are having problems finding medical students who will go through 12 years of training for what is basically a tenth of what a U.S. doctor makes.
As the US president who won the most electoral votes in the 20th century once said:
... you're losing."
"If you're explaining
>People who have the motivation to work taken away from them
Motivation - or pressure?
If I received UBI, I would certainly feel positively motivated to give something back to my community.
As it is, I have to cave in to the pressure to make ends meet, which leaves me no energy for the community.