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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.
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.
"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."
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."
You're an idiot. Of course those people are producing wealth. They just don't get any of the profits from their labor.
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).
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!
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.
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!!!
If you're just showing up for a McJob
What you're describing is the same for any job. You trade your time for money. It's up to the organization to use those hours well to determine whether or not wealth is generated. There's no need to shit on jobs that you don't deem as worthy as whatever it is you do.
I don't respond to AC's.
If you're just showing up for a McJob, you're not producing wealth and you're not paid to produce wealth.
Bullshit! If you weren't producing wealth then why would the corporation pay you to show up.
The corporation is generating wealth and they're trading a portion of that wealth with you for your time and labor.
Bullshit! The corporation is not trading wealth for your time out of the badness of their hearts. They are paying you because you are generating more wealth for them than they are paying you.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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.
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.
Labor fears our leaders care more about their power then our well being, red, white and/or blue.
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 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".
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Automation has been freeing up more spare time for people since roughly 1800. The sky is yet to fall. Those who can't figure out what to do with their newest imcrements of spare time are welcome to use fentanyl or whatever as an exit from this cruel world. The rest of us have new things to do.
Robots just represent the latest batch of automated jobs.
Which country with a socialist economy has succeeded?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
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!
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!
Its such a waste , this guy thinking these things when he could be creating and working. If she has flaws or gaps in thinking (I think so), he needs to point them out humbly. No good comes from pride of any sort - the most important thing we have, life itself, we didn't earn. The best we can do is to treat others as we would like to be treated and earn a quiet sober satisfaction when we work and create.
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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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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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
Se my self-answer above.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
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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You know she can't run, right?
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.
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.
It's true; everyone can own their own little place in the bread line. Except for the politicians, their toadies, and the criminals (but I'm repeating myself) who won't "own" anything yet will still drive around in fancy cars and eat caviar.
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.
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.
Like Al Gore, the mere mention of AOC triggers the lizard brain in right wingers. It's embarrassing - for you.
No, you're an idiot. Take an economics or a business class.
Reminds me about this cartoon: https://henrykotula.com/2019/0...
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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.
You're right! It is the same for every job. If you work as an employee, you're not generating wealth, period. It doesn't matter if you're moping floors, working as a surgeon at a hospital, writing code, or parking cars as a valet. You're trading your time and labor for money. Nothing more.
I'm not shitting on anybody's job and I never made any value judgements on anybody's career. That happened inside your own head. I'm simply speaking to AOC's target audience (those who work hard for little pay and will continue to do so until they understand economics) and stating that working as an employee, regardless of who it is for, is not a wealth-generating relationship. AOC's entire premise is a lie.
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.
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..
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.
I think your company/customer vs employer/employee relationship is bullshit, becuae I don't see the difference. How is it different for A to sell labor to B, from B selling a service (powered by A's labor) to C. Where A is the employee, B is the company/employer and C is the customer. Like, seriously, name one way the relationship between A and B is different from the relationship between B and C.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
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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No, they are paying you because they want your time and labor.
And you're not reading.
You: they're doing X.
Me: they're doing X for reason Y
You: NO THEY ARE DOING X
Yes we both agree they are trading money for labour. They are doing that because your labour generates more wealth than the money they are paying for it. If they didn't they could turn a greater profit by NOT paying for your time.
Many small businesses in the world create wealth without any employees at all.
Only in the legal sense of the word "employee", which is irrelevant outside of a semantic argument. In the real world the sole owner generates wealth by doing stuff then sells that for money. In the process that person pays themselves from the profits.
Either way their work generates the wealth.
Without creating a company and without trading your time and labor with an employer for money, how much money does your time and labor generate?
That's a silly question: at the point I started a company I did so because a company provides limited liability protecton, separation of financials, VAT registration and a few other legal and administrative niceities.
But I'm the one that did all the work. My actions generated the wealth. The company just sat there being an administrative entity. When I stopped doing the work, the company generated no wealth.
Companies do not DO anything. Only people do things.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
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
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 ?
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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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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
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.
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.
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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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You can use facts to prove anything even remotely true - Homer J. Simpson.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
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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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.
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.
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.
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'
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
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
You want employees to be treated as profit-sharing partners, but immune from the losses their enterprise may suffer.
That's not how the world works.
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.
$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