While you are sitting there, with a thumb up your ass, losing your purchasing power by holding fiat currencies every day of the week, real money - gold keeps the value.
I have nothing to prove to you, real money proves it. To you, everything went up in price. In gold, everything stayed near the same in price or even fell.
July 1922 670 reichsmarks = 1 US dollar August 1922 2,000 reichsmarks = 1 US dollar October 1922 45,000 reichsmarks = 1 US dollar November 1922 10,000 reichsmarks = 1 US dollar 30 December 1922 500,000 reichsmarks = 1 US dollar May 4, 1923 RM 40,000 = 1 US dollar June 1, 1923 RM 70,000 =1 US dollar June 30, 1923 RM 150,000 = 1 US dollar August 1-August 7, 1923 RM 3,500,000 = 1 US Dollar August 15, 1923 RM 4,000,000 = 1 US Dollar September 1, 1923 RM 10,000,000 = 1 US Dollar September 30, 1923 RM 60,000,000 = 1 US Dollar
November 15, 1923 Rentenmark issued; pegged to the Gold Standard; Rentenmark 4.2 = 1 US dollar; at this time: Old Reichsmark 4,200,000,000 = 1 US dollar
-----------
Hyper inflation situations that resulted in discarding currency and pegging to reserve of some sort for a century and a half:
Argentina 1975-91 Zimbabwe 1980 - 2009 Angola 1991-95 Austria 1914-23 Belarus 1994-2002 Bolivia 1984-86 Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992-93 Brazil 1986-94 Bulgaria 1996-97 China 1948-49 Free City of Danzig 1923 Georgia 1993-95 Greece 1942-44 Hungary 1922-24 and again Hungary 1945-46 Israel 1970-79 Krajina 1992-93 Mexico - debt default in 83, and hyper inflation to 1993 Nicaragua 1987-90 Peru 1988-90 Philippines 1942-44 Poland 1921-24 Romania 1990-98 Russia 1921-22 again Russia 1992-98 Taiwan 1947-49 Ukraine 1993-96 United fucking States of America: 1861-65 Yugoslavia 1989-94 Zaire (Congo) 1989-96
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No. You fucking goldbuggers don't know how economy works. Currency is not a way to replace gold, it's just an unforgeable token for certain amount wealth to be used in exchanges.
- yet, you idiot, fail to recognize the simple fact. Gold is money, and paper is not.
Thus paper is printed out of existence, proven with above examples (and I am not even counting North Korea and Cuba and such, they are retarded in this sense).
Gold on the other hand keeps value.
So, when you say this:
And the fact that we can change the amount of money in circulation with relative ease and use it to influence the economy is one of the greatest insights. And you want to throw it out for nothing.
- I ALREADY THREW IT OUT.
Yeah, for myself I threw it out. Ask me what I hold for money, for the last decade, dumb ass, ask me. Paper - medium of short term exchange, because stores do not deal in gold. Gold - money.
Saying I should 'believe you'. I believe my eyes when I look around and see dumb asses losing their purchasing power, day after day, after day. Dumb ass.
Wrong! Bond prices are low and that means the USA can't print dollars fast enough for other people to buy. So the rest of your argument folds as house made of cards.
- Bond prices are falling and thus the buyers are dumping, and the only buyers are national banks.
Bond prices are falling and thus the interest rates are rising, it's a seesaw, as bond prices fall, interest rise. If the bond issuer does not raise the interest, the bond price hits bottom.
Now, however, the Fed is the buyer of bonds. So Fed is printing the dollars that it is buying the bonds with. So you have no argument at all - it's not that people want dollars, it's that they are not willing to hold the US bonds.
You completely misunderstand the bond market, totally.
Wrong! Read history, the Great Depression was preceded by tight fiscal policy.
- as if it's me, who needs to 'read history'.
The Fed pumped the economy full of greenback even just between 1927 and 28 to keep inflating the construction and stock market booms.
In 1928 they stopped printing, that's true. But the damage was done, the inflated valuations and the stimulus did its dirty work and the sudden stop of the printing presses in 1928 sent a shock through the inflated system - all of a sudden the gov't stopped pumping the money into the bubble.
OK, bubble burst. Instead of letting it work itself out by reducing gov't spending, the gov't didn't stop spending, started mis-allocating ever more resources causing the Great Depression, (which in retrospect is not going to look so 'Great', when it will be compared to the depression that is still ahead of USA due to the next bubble bursting - the US bond bubble.)
You are WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. Thousands times wrong.
- you should put a loop around it, like so:
for(;;){ print your garbage here} or you can use while(1) or while(true), but it won't change a single thing.
You will still not understand anything that is being said and you will still be on the losing side, because you do not understand economics.
And yet the world heeds idiots like you because your words just SOUND right even though they have no meaning. One moment you predict inflation and the other moment you predict high bond prices. And when neither prediction comes true you start twisting the meaning of the words.
- predicting inflation?
Inflation is here, open up your dumb eyes. Inflation is all around. Inflation is expansion of money supply. Inflation is the cause of rising prices, but inflation in itself is NOT rising prices.
Prices can rise for various reasons, but inflation causes a class of assets to gain value RELATIVE to the value of the worthless currency.
I am NOT predicting high bond prices, you dumb shit, dumb ass, idiot. I am predicting the bubble, that is US bond prices are in NOW bursting.
I am predicting CRASH, you fucking nimrod, crash of bond prices , dumb shit. Crash of bond prices, get it through you stupid ass thick skull.
Crash of bond prices sends the INTEREST RATES UP.
Long term interest rates up.
Bonds crash - interest rates go up.
Interest rates will go up because the prices for bonds will crash.
Fucking idiot.
Your kind of goldbuggers has so far been consistently wrong in predicting EVERYTHING in this crisis. Absolutely fucking everything: inflation, rising bond prices, national defaults, etc. Your every fucking prediction was untrue.
- hey, fucking retard, look at my sig.
The video is from 2006. The guy is explaining the incoming 2008 crash in vivid details. He made money on shorting the mortgage market. So you are a fucking retard who is also ignorant, and with my SIGNATURE I refute your stupid ass claim that you sucked out of your asshole in that idiotic, retarded paragraph, moron.
Fiat money is one of the greatest inventions of the 20-th century.
- just wanted to say something about this.
Fiat - I do not consider it to be money, not US dollars, not Euro. Sure, in the stores we exchange these for goods, but we shouldn't be holding these pieces of paper that become more and more worthless with every new one that is printed by the so called 'independent' central bank.
If fiat is any good, it's the kind that Hong Kong has - competing currencies, issued by different banks with different reserves behind them (and there is an official competing currency of the city itself.) At least there is competition between those currencies.
The way the fiat is structured - there is no way anybody in his/her sound mind and judgment should want to hold it. Real money is what real money has always been - gold. The word for money came from the word for gold in most cultures. Gold cannot be printed at a whim of a politician, it holds value, it's an easy medium of exchange, it's indestructible, it's easy to reshape, it's everything that real money needs to be.
The only sound type of paper money is the kind that is simply a gold equivalent. If the currency has no reserve behind it, but it has a printing press - that's not money, it's not worth holding, it's not worth saving, it's a losing proposition, this has been shown over and over, by all the inflations, hyper-inflations, if you don't see it, you are blind.
Even against other currencies, like Canadian dollar or Swiss Frank, etc., US dollar lost 50% of value easy over the last 15 years. Against gold it lost much more than that, that's because all currencies are being debased.
In 1800s, the growth of US economy and lack of most of forms of gov't control, caused US dollar to appreciate by a factor of 2. I don't think people complained too much due to the deflationary effects of them being able to buy MORE things with the SAME money as time progressed, not fewer things with the 'same' money as it is happening past 1913 (the Fed and growth of gov't.)
USA had recessions - yes. You are saying it as if it is a bad thing! Recessions are wonderful, they are great. Recessions allow restructuring, allow mis-allocated resources (capital/labor/land) to be released and reallocated in more productive ways.
In 1800s the recessions didn't turn into depressions because there was no gov't spending recessions into depressions, which is what happened in USA after 1929 (but not in 1920, when recession was mitigated and fixed by Harding, who cut gov't spending instead by 70%)
In 1800s, the USA gov't wasn't in business of bailing out failures, that's why recessions were more frequent in numbers, but they only affected the people whose money was actually on the line, and not EVERYBODY, as recessions do today, due to gov't propping up/stimulating/bailing out the failing enterprises.
Recessions must happen, they will always happen, they are a fix to a mis-allocated resource that needs to be released and reallocated productively. Recessions are good, they release the steam from a bubble. Recessions, if not spent into by gov't, do not turn into depressions, which are much worse, because during depression there is no reallocation of resources, so instead of creative destruction, instead of losing bad businesses so that credit is freed and good businesses can restart and rehire the people who lost their jobs, instead the bad businesses are propped up, the credit is all eaten by the gov't spending machine and there is no release, a bigger bubble is inflated, while jobs are lost and not returned.
In depressions, which are all caused by gov't intervention, the only entity that can hire is a gov't, so depressions make situation worse in more ways than one - they destroy real market and they create more useless jobs, not jobs that produce anything people actually need or want, but instead the so called jobs are something that gov't decides must be done, and of-course it's all always wrong.
Were 1800s perfect? No. Was economy more SOUND during 1800s than during 1900s and 2000s? Of-course. USA became the biggest producer, the biggest creditor, it paid out all debt, so it didn't have any, it produced quality things people wanted - actual wealth, it caused money to increase in value - a win for the working people, who could buy more with same.
The only people who are afraid of deflation and want inflation instead, are people with most debt, who do not stand a chance of being able to actually pay the debt out in real money - real production. That's government. It's the gov't that basically benefits from destruction of monetary system that it hijacks.
Your argument is invalid, and that's why - other prices are not rising, except for some commodities.
- Rising consumer prices will be coming to USA once it cannot DISPOSE of its US dollars and bonds to producer nations.
European countries that are in trouble are at least implementing austerity measures, however ECB is also printing and it is also pushing the Euro down.
Bank of Japan is also printing, especially now, though this is ridiculous, they should be cashing in their foreign holdings (US T-bills, dollars), because if they are scared to cash in the US debt now, when they really need to buy a lot of stuff, so they really need to appreciate their curerency, then it shows just how pathetic the entire concept of 'reserve currency' is, that you can't use it even in a real, serious, extreme emergency, that Japan is experiencing, because you are trying still to prop up the US consumer.
My argument is absolutely correct. You are not understanding that USA is printing dollars to buy consumer goods that are created in other countries, mostly in Asia. So the Asian economy must buy the commodities - raw materials, that are used to produce the goods, then the Asians send these goods to USA, which pays in printed cash, then Asia based companies take the printed cash and convert it into their local currency by bringing the cash to the banks, and the central bank (which they also have unfortunately), then prints their currency to buy the US dollars.
So you are not seeing the prices go up in USA, because those dollars end up collecting in foreign central banks, but you do see the commodity prices going up, because they are being bought with printed money. All of this causes the Asians to subsidize the USA consumer, by allowing the US prices to stay very low.
What Japan really ought to be doing (and probably will end up doing) is dumping the US debt. Today the US bond buyers are all central banks, including US Fed. The private parties are all selling. This is because all national banks operate under assumption that they can always print more currency, so they are not worried, but this process pushes prices of all currencies down, while forcing commodities up.
Now, in USA the end-consumer prices are not rising yet, but across the world they are rising. This entire situation with the Arab nations rebelling is based on the fact, that 80% of their income goes towards food and energy, so for them the prices are rising sharply, thus there are rebellions.
Also saying that there is no inflation in Eurozone is misleading. Prices are going up in Eurozone in real terms, even if they stay in check in nominal terms, because Euro is losing grounds, the austerity measures end up cutting plenty of social obligation support, so people basically end up with less money for the same basket of goods. In Europe there are price controls, for example in Germany the Italian pasta costs 1/3-1/5 as much as it costs in Italy due to price controls (all of this is terrible for the overall economy and never works in the long term), so you see Italians actually crossing the border, coming to Germany to buy their own food.
As to 'peak oil' - certainly, there is this, there are trouble all over the Middle East, but the oil is just one of all commodities, and all of them are rising.
Cotton, sugar, rice, wheat, pork, metals, coffee, etc.etc.etc., everything is near or at or much above their historic averages and in some cases historic highs.
Yeah, fix itself in the sense "emasculate". Right into the Greatest Depression. Fiat money is one of the greatest inventions of the 20-th century.
- Great Depression was caused by the gov't spending into a recession it also caused. The 1920 recession was worse than 1929 (and worse than 2008) in terms of total job losses, however Harding turned it around by cutting 70% of gov't spending. 1920 recession was caused by Fed printing since 1913.
The 1929 recession was caused by Fed propping up Bri
wrong, the $147 bbl crude is the aftermath of what actually causes recession - money printing.
That's right. Recessions are caused by mis-allocated resources, but governments cause recessions by printing money and propping up various businesses, inflating asset bubbles, all of which leads to mis-allocated resources.
Of-course in this case that USA is in now, the government also has destroyed the capital savings by all the printing, but also it grew too much, and through its growth, it has created too many rules/regulations/monopolies.
A working economy can afford a government, even if the government is grossly overweight, but an economy that is losing capital investment through inflation (money printing) and capital/jobs flight (regulations, income taxes, subsidies to preferred businesses), such an economy cannot afford to have government that taxes income and mis-allocates funds further through government departments and programs.
The $147 bbl crude is just a RESULT of the inflation, which is monetary expansion - printing. It's not just crude, it's all commodities and energy.
Stop the money printing, cut the government by an amount that would return it to pre-1913 levels, and you'll allow the economy to fix itself.
this opens a possibility that even the modern, newest computers, with gigabytes of RAM and multiple processors/cores won't be enough to do a basic thing without nearly hanging the entire machine.
Nothing is too big to fail, this includes nations and the planet. However if we decide that a corporation or a government is really too big to fail, then it's really too big to exist
The important thing to understand here is that Mr Oehmen is in USA, probably somewhere around MIT and the nuclear power plants are in Japan, so he really should not be worried about that too much.
There is no graphite in Japanese reactors to burn and accelerate the fission process. It is literally impossible to have Chernobyl there because there is no graphite there.
- what is not silly about following some wikipedia?
Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit.
- capitalism is about investment. Investment can only be done through savings.
Savings lead to investment and investment leads to owning means of production, whatever those means are. There is nothing special about the means of production themselves, you do not even have to own anything, all you have to do is invest into something, whether it's a factory or an invention or a bunch of people playing with their dicks. If this makes money - you are an investor for the purposes of profit.
Investing savings to get profit is capitalism. It's not about production in itself, it's about investment.
Note that saving/investing does not get explicitly mentioned here.
- because it's a stupid definition. You may have capital in the form of gold. You may have capital in the form of a factory floor or some tool or some instrument or some invention or maybe rights to some copyrighted materials, like a painting by Leonardo, etc.
Capital does not have to be 'tools of production' itself, it just has to be some sort of a thing with value that you saved, that you own and that you are willing to (re)invest in order to make some profit but also with a risk of a loss.
Learn to think for yourself, wikipedia is not sent from some space god on a freaking stone, it's a burning bush either.
one correction: 200 years ago there were around 1 billion people, so that's not 15 times, but close to 7-8, whatever the number of billion on the planet today.
They caused major shift in population, major advancement in human lives in every way possible. Should they not have done that? You and I most likely wouldn't be alive and definitely wouldn't be using computers, talking on the Internet.
You made assumptions based only on a small amount of information.
- that's all we have here, small amount of information. You said you want capitalism stopped, so you don't want people to have machines that will do all their work for them? Why not? That's the goal.
It encourages greed.
- so what does not encourage greed? Government? That would be funny.
Capitalism does not 'encourage' greed, it feeds off of greed. Greed is the primary mover, capitalism is just a logical outcome, a system that is designed by humans to provide most out of that desire. So really, are you against capitalism or are you against greed? Because if you are against actual greed, you'd be surprised to find out that greed exists whether capitalism exists or not.
Clearly in North Korea capitalism does not exist. Do you think greed doesn't exist there either? What about their greedy dictator and his son?
Leech off of your own subordinates to make a profit.
- oh yeah? I see both sides: the subordinate is leeching off of the business owner. The subordinate gets paid month to month, regardless if the owner gets paid or not, because first things first: for company to exist, salaries and rent and bills and taxes and debt must be paid first, the owner gets whatever is left.
If the owner is smart enough to make the business profitable, then by the end of the day, he will have good amount in profit that's left over after paying every single thing he must pay. If he is not smart or maybe just doing the wrong thing in the wrong time, he will have losses. If he invested his own money, he'll lose it.
90% of businesses fail. That's 90% of risk takers fail. That's 90% of investments do not succeed to provide profit. That's still businesses that are paying salaries and bills etc., only the owner doesn't get paid (and whoever the investors are, be it the owner himself or others.) YOU are the one with the simplistic POV. Have you ever ran a business? Have you ever had to meet payroll, sign checks, pay bills for every day expenses for that business while not seeing the profits? Have you ever risked anything to get something back?
Yes, the business model that USA has currently: get insured by gov't through subsidies/regulations, take risks with impossible odds, due to gov't subsidies and laws, fail, get bailed out by gov't, take that money, buy US bonds, declare sky high profits - that's fucked up, but that's NOT capitalism. That's the opposite of capitalism, because there is no actual investor.
There is coercion of people by gov't to pay taxes and all those things described above happen automagically. Then there are creditor nations and the printing press. Well, US gov't will end up destroying US dollar. Not much time left before that happens. US bond market will collapse (it already is collapsing, 71% of purchases are national banks and 29% is Fed, no private buyers, only private sellers).
It causes much corruption among government, among other things.
- oh yeah? It's not capitalism that causes gov't corruption. It's corruption of the people that causes gov't corruption. It's greed that causes gov't corruption. Do you think in non-capitalist North Korea or USSR there is/was no gov't corruption? Venezuela? Cuba?
What should be done is something that cannot be done: gov't must be prohibited from collecting income taxes, passing regulations on businesses, subsidizing businesses, subsidizing people.
Subsidizing people - this is the reason why there is gov't corruption. People want something for nothing, they'll vote for it every time. Politicians tax income, print money (Fed+Treasury) and they buy votes. Once voters can be bought, there will be corruption in government, because nobody will be standing up for actual principles.
It often results in destruction.
- capitalism? Everything people do results in destruction. Do you
I do. I actually care about the planet and the well being of future generations. If I can reasonably extent the amount of time it takes for a resource to be depleted, I will attempt to do so.
- clearly you do not. You just said some time earlier that you think capitalism should be stopped because "it's bad" or something?
So if there is a system that can give everyone everything and it's created through deflation by increased efficiencies due to profit motive of companies, who try to outperform each other and to capture the market, all of this while trying to make profit, if this system succeeds at providing 'replicators' and you are saying the resources are plenty and so is energy, then again:
1. Why do you want to stop capitalism? 2. Why do you want people to work where machines can clearly outperform them and provide them with the outcome of that work with 0 human energy expended? 3. Aren't you admitting that if resource/energy depletion is a problem in a capitalist system, which produces everything that's needed, then there ARE problems that machines are not solving that need solutions? Soylent Green perhaps? 4. If you care about future generations, wouldn't you wish them to achieve this point in time, where all of their needs are taken care of by machines?
Here is the actual problem: what's the point of future generations?
What is the point of existing if everything you need is provided?
If people decide that they have nothing to do, they may end up committing mass suicide somehow from complete boredom OR they will find things to do.
Do you even understand that people are pushed forward by a desire to show off to their peers, and this is why most discretionary spending is done by people? If they are not fulfilling their survival needs, then they are doing things just for reasons they come up with from thin air: having a bigger house than the Johnsons, having more cars, more money, bigger yard, prettier wife, more kids (or maybe fewer, depends what's in style that decade).
People are CONSTANTLY 'wasting' energy and resources on discretionary stuff, that is really not needed for their survival. It's because once you get past the survival needs, there is NOTHING for you to do, but what you come up with by yourself.
I could not care less about people, who will not find things to occupy themselves with and who'd just sit there idle, watching some stupid TV show.
Don't you understand that there is nothing to do once you have all your basic needs taken care of? That everything we do is because we don't know what to do with ourselves?
"The future generations" you care so much about will have exactly the same problem, they will have to solve theirs, I don't give a shit, I have mine to solve. I am not making 'holier than though' statements about not wasting more than absolute minimum of resources.
What am I, a mushroom, just to sit there, wallowing happy in some moisture and some sun light? Fucking bullshit.
What's the point of that? That just sounds like an inefficient waste of resources to me.
- care to explain what higher purpose does your life serve rather than just expending resources? Whether you are doing it efficiently or not, who gives a shit?
It sounds like, at this point, capitalism is pointless and shouldn't even exist (not that I think that it is good now).
- Then you are not just blind but also not too bright. If capitalism leads to this unlikely outcome, then all our desires have been fulfilled, all hopes answered.
You see how stupid this is? Do you really think people will have a point in time when they will just not want anything more than they have at a point right before that one? It makes no sense, it's pure nonsense.
If I have 1000 jet fighters, I may want 1000000 of them, why not? If I have 10000 hookers surrounding me with love and care, I just may want 10000000 of them, I'll be 1000 times more cared for then. There is no stopping the desire to have more.
Capitalism is a system that is used to move towards this goal (I am not sure about the hooker part, but basically). Is capitalism good or bad?
I don't care if it's good or bad as long as it's giving me what I want at ever lower prices.
Really? In the presence of true artificial intelligence, which ones are those?
- AI that can do what? Answer this first: what the hell do you think AI can do? Can it simulate human thoughts with all the needs and wants? How is it different from humans then, if it can? What does AI want? Maybe it'll be smart enough to stop wanting to work for you?
Hookers - there will always be need for hookers - there. AI doesn't matter in that profession at all.
Human based philosophy - because AI can never be a human unless it gets to a point where it has human bodies and problems and limitations and needs and wants, etc.
Fighting wars based on hate - how about this useful purely human endeavor? Not very productive, but can be used to pass all the time in the world.
Politics - unless they invent an AI system that can be as slimy as human politicians, I doubt that's going to happen.
In any case, there will be new ideas that I can't even come up with because I have never seen it, just like 200 years ago a farmer couldn't come up with genetic programming.
I explained 'what then' in that unlikely hypothetical a few comments back.
THEN you have cost of production = 0.
THEN you have no reason for anybody to work, as 'replication' of whatever products would be achieved at that cost of 0. (0 effort expended by a human.)
THEN you end up with a replicator per person.
This is stupid. I know of plenty of professions that will not disappear just because machines can do them too.
That's because your understanding of 'useful work' is limited to what you know.
It's like asking a Neanderthal - would it be useful for him if somebody gave him a cellphone. He doesn't know WTF that is. He doesn't have any idea about it, about new industries and possibilities that he could have with it.
The point is exactly that 200 years ago people were saying this same shit about machine automation.
Why should we WANT people to work doing whatever they do today? It's trivial, what we do today. We need to do something new, that's not trivial. This is exactly what genetics would sound like to a guy 200 years ago - not trivial.
- really? I just presented that scenario in stupid enough detail for you, what's the problem? You can't read? The comment is mostly made of that exact proposition, that there is nothing for humans to do because machines do everything. If that's the case, then cost of human labor is 0, because there nothing anybody wants from anybody that any person can do.
This is what the comment was about, and you are telling me I didn't think of that scenario? English, motherfucker, can you read it?
I am not trolling, I am not paying attention to your drivel. Trust buster you want? How about busting the government? Maybe government shouldn't be in business of creating monopolies in the first place?
I'll add one more thing to my earlier comment here.
If all of a sudden all of the jobs were completely automated, and people did NOT invent any new industries, because let's say for the sake of an argument there is nothing more to invent, then what?
Well then it's easy. If all of the people's needs and desires are completely automated, nobody wants to hire anybody, that would mean that this abundance of products would not be purchased, and prices would go down.
If all of the tasks are automated, if machines fix machines, machines build machines, machines make everything, then if humans cannot buy those products for consumption due to lack of money, the prices would fall dramatically. What good is a trillion doughnuts if nobody is buying? Well, you can eat some doughnuts yourself, but you can't eat a trillion.
Let's say there are mining machines, energy producing machines, transport machines, refining machines, manufacturing machines, marketing machines, art machines, health dispensing machines, etc.etc. This would mean that there is complete abundance and nothing for humans to do.
Well isn't that the goal - to do nothing at the end? Why are people working? So they can get things for themselves. What if things were so cheap, so abundant, that people could work for 1 day in a year to make enough salary to sustain insane level of luxury for the year?
But if they can't get any jobs at all, no matter what, if they can't make 1 cent, then what? They can't buy anything. However what is the COST of production in a completely automated environment, with completely automated maintenance solutions, etc?
What is that cost for humans? It's 0.
What you get is your silly replicator. Not necessarily in the form of a small replicator tool, but basically you push a button to start a process of a machine building a machine, machine supplying energy and other resources, machine bringing it all together, machine manufacturing parts, assembly machine, packaging and transportation to the end customer.
IF, IF it were possible, then ANYBODY could have this done - anybody could have their own completely automated solution to all life's needs. Nobody would be buying or selling anything. Everybody would have everything - total communism.
--
Is this feasible? Is it going to happen?
Of-course not. It's not going to happen because the resources are not infinite, because energy is not infinite, because we do not have answers to all questions.
You are shortsighted because you think that people really need to work where they work today to have a better future, and they have to work there forever. This is not true. Majority of questions are not answered yet, they are not even asked yet. Machines can do work and take away production of so many things, and this is what's happening now with so many technologies.
Why are computers falling in price or doing more and more for the same price? It's because in those industries certain level of automation is achieved that makes it possible to recoup the costs very quickly and to lower prices. All that's needed is free market without gov't meddling with it, and allowing the market to bring the costs so much down, it's near 0.
Deflation is good. Deflation is the best thing for society - as costs are approaching zero and efficiencies are approaching maximum. Cost of labor approaches zero slower, because there is always things that people can do, that machines do not. So deflation is net gain for the wealth of society, and this means that automation to the maximum possible is the best thing for society too.
You are a modern version of a Luddite, just as panicky, just as shortsighted.
Slashdot Mirror
I have one word for you, dumb ass - gold.
While you are sitting there, with a thumb up your ass, losing your purchasing power by holding fiat currencies every day of the week, real money - gold keeps the value.
I have nothing to prove to you, real money proves it. To you, everything went up in price. In gold, everything stayed near the same in price or even fell.
Weimar Republic of Germany.
July 1922 670 reichsmarks = 1 US dollar
August 1922 2,000 reichsmarks = 1 US dollar
October 1922 45,000 reichsmarks = 1 US dollar
November 1922 10,000 reichsmarks = 1 US dollar
30 December 1922 500,000 reichsmarks = 1 US dollar
May 4, 1923 RM 40,000 = 1 US dollar
June 1, 1923 RM 70,000 =1 US dollar
June 30, 1923 RM 150,000 = 1 US dollar
August 1-August 7, 1923 RM 3,500,000 = 1 US Dollar
August 15, 1923 RM 4,000,000 = 1 US Dollar
September 1, 1923 RM 10,000,000 = 1 US Dollar
September 30, 1923 RM 60,000,000 = 1 US Dollar
November 15, 1923 Rentenmark issued; pegged to the Gold Standard; Rentenmark 4.2 = 1 US dollar; at this time:
Old Reichsmark 4,200,000,000 = 1 US dollar
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Hyper inflation situations that resulted in discarding currency and pegging to reserve of some sort for a century and a half:
Argentina 1975-91
Zimbabwe 1980 - 2009
Angola 1991-95
Austria 1914-23
Belarus 1994-2002
Bolivia 1984-86
Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992-93
Brazil 1986-94
Bulgaria 1996-97
China 1948-49
Free City of Danzig 1923
Georgia 1993-95
Greece 1942-44
Hungary 1922-24
and again Hungary 1945-46
Israel 1970-79
Krajina 1992-93
Mexico - debt default in 83, and hyper inflation to 1993
Nicaragua 1987-90
Peru 1988-90
Philippines 1942-44
Poland 1921-24
Romania 1990-98
Russia 1921-22
again Russia 1992-98
Taiwan 1947-49
Ukraine 1993-96
United fucking States of America: 1861-65
Yugoslavia 1989-94
Zaire (Congo) 1989-96
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No. You fucking goldbuggers don't know how economy works. Currency is not a way to replace gold, it's just an unforgeable token for certain amount wealth to be used in exchanges.
- yet, you idiot, fail to recognize the simple fact. Gold is money, and paper is not.
Thus paper is printed out of existence, proven with above examples (and I am not even counting North Korea and Cuba and such, they are retarded in this sense).
Gold on the other hand keeps value.
So, when you say this:
And the fact that we can change the amount of money in circulation with relative ease and use it to influence the economy is one of the greatest insights. And you want to throw it out for nothing.
- I ALREADY THREW IT OUT.
Yeah, for myself I threw it out. Ask me what I hold for money, for the last decade, dumb ass, ask me. Paper - medium of short term exchange, because stores do not deal in gold. Gold - money.
Saying I should 'believe you'. I believe my eyes when I look around and see dumb asses losing their purchasing power, day after day, after day. Dumb ass.
Wrong! Bond prices are low and that means the USA can't print dollars fast enough for other people to buy. So the rest of your argument folds as house made of cards.
- Bond prices are falling and thus the buyers are dumping, and the only buyers are national banks.
Bond prices are falling and thus the interest rates are rising, it's a seesaw, as bond prices fall, interest rise. If the bond issuer does not raise the interest, the bond price hits bottom.
Now, however, the Fed is the buyer of bonds.
So Fed is printing the dollars that it is buying the bonds with. So you have no argument at all - it's not that people want dollars, it's that they are not willing to hold the US bonds.
You completely misunderstand the bond market, totally.
Wrong! Read history, the Great Depression was preceded by tight fiscal policy.
- as if it's me, who needs to 'read history'.
The Fed pumped the economy full of greenback even just between 1927 and 28 to keep inflating the construction and stock market booms.
In 1928 they stopped printing, that's true. But the damage was done, the inflated valuations and the stimulus did its dirty work and the sudden stop of the printing presses in 1928 sent a shock through the inflated system - all of a sudden the gov't stopped pumping the money into the bubble.
OK, bubble burst. Instead of letting it work itself out by reducing gov't spending, the gov't didn't stop spending, started mis-allocating ever more resources causing the Great Depression, (which in retrospect is not going to look so 'Great', when it will be compared to the depression that is still ahead of USA due to the next bubble bursting - the US bond bubble.)
You are WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. Thousands times wrong.
- you should put a loop around it, like so:
for(;;){ print your garbage here} or you can use while(1) or while(true), but it won't change a single thing.
You will still not understand anything that is being said and you will still be on the losing side, because you do not understand economics.
And yet the world heeds idiots like you because your words just SOUND right even though they have no meaning. One moment you predict inflation and the other moment you predict high bond prices. And when neither prediction comes true you start twisting the meaning of the words.
- predicting inflation?
Inflation is here, open up your dumb eyes. Inflation is all around. Inflation is expansion of money supply. Inflation is the cause of rising prices, but inflation in itself is NOT rising prices.
Prices can rise for various reasons, but inflation causes a class of assets to gain value RELATIVE to the value of the worthless currency.
I am NOT predicting high bond prices, you dumb shit, dumb ass, idiot. I am predicting the bubble, that is US bond prices are in NOW bursting.
I am predicting CRASH, you fucking nimrod, crash of bond prices , dumb shit. Crash of bond prices, get it through you stupid ass thick skull.
Crash of bond prices sends the INTEREST RATES UP.
Long term interest rates up.
Bonds crash - interest rates go up.
Interest rates will go up because the prices for bonds will crash.
Fucking idiot.
Your kind of goldbuggers has so far been consistently wrong in predicting EVERYTHING in this crisis. Absolutely fucking everything: inflation, rising bond prices, national defaults, etc. Your every fucking prediction was untrue.
- hey, fucking retard, look at my sig.
The video is from 2006. The guy is explaining the incoming 2008 crash in vivid details. He made money on shorting the mortgage market. So you are a fucking retard who is also ignorant, and with my SIGNATURE I refute your stupid ass claim that you sucked out of your asshole in that idiotic, retarded paragraph, moron.
And Keynesian predictions were always
Fiat money is one of the greatest inventions of the 20-th century.
- just wanted to say something about this.
Fiat - I do not consider it to be money, not US dollars, not Euro. Sure, in the stores we exchange these for goods, but we shouldn't be holding these pieces of paper that become more and more worthless with every new one that is printed by the so called 'independent' central bank.
If fiat is any good, it's the kind that Hong Kong has - competing currencies, issued by different banks with different reserves behind them (and there is an official competing currency of the city itself.) At least there is competition between those currencies.
The way the fiat is structured - there is no way anybody in his/her sound mind and judgment should want to hold it. Real money is what real money has always been - gold. The word for money came from the word for gold in most cultures. Gold cannot be printed at a whim of a politician, it holds value, it's an easy medium of exchange, it's indestructible, it's easy to reshape, it's everything that real money needs to be.
The only sound type of paper money is the kind that is simply a gold equivalent. If the currency has no reserve behind it, but it has a printing press - that's not money, it's not worth holding, it's not worth saving, it's a losing proposition, this has been shown over and over, by all the inflations, hyper-inflations, if you don't see it, you are blind.
Even against other currencies, like Canadian dollar or Swiss Frank, etc., US dollar lost 50% of value easy over the last 15 years. Against gold it lost much more than that, that's because all currencies are being debased.
Anybody relying on fiat for savings is a fool.
In 1800s, the growth of US economy and lack of most of forms of gov't control, caused US dollar to appreciate by a factor of 2. I don't think people complained too much due to the deflationary effects of them being able to buy MORE things with the SAME money as time progressed, not fewer things with the 'same' money as it is happening past 1913 (the Fed and growth of gov't.)
USA had recessions - yes. You are saying it as if it is a bad thing! Recessions are wonderful, they are great. Recessions allow restructuring, allow mis-allocated resources (capital/labor/land) to be released and reallocated in more productive ways.
In 1800s the recessions didn't turn into depressions because there was no gov't spending recessions into depressions, which is what happened in USA after 1929 (but not in 1920, when recession was mitigated and fixed by Harding, who cut gov't spending instead by 70%)
In 1800s, the USA gov't wasn't in business of bailing out failures, that's why recessions were more frequent in numbers, but they only affected the people whose money was actually on the line, and not EVERYBODY, as recessions do today, due to gov't propping up/stimulating/bailing out the failing enterprises.
Recessions must happen, they will always happen, they are a fix to a mis-allocated resource that needs to be released and reallocated productively. Recessions are good, they release the steam from a bubble. Recessions, if not spent into by gov't, do not turn into depressions, which are much worse, because during depression there is no reallocation of resources, so instead of creative destruction, instead of losing bad businesses so that credit is freed and good businesses can restart and rehire the people who lost their jobs, instead the bad businesses are propped up, the credit is all eaten by the gov't spending machine and there is no release, a bigger bubble is inflated, while jobs are lost and not returned.
In depressions, which are all caused by gov't intervention, the only entity that can hire is a gov't, so depressions make situation worse in more ways than one - they destroy real market and they create more useless jobs, not jobs that produce anything people actually need or want, but instead the so called jobs are something that gov't decides must be done, and of-course it's all always wrong.
Were 1800s perfect?
No.
Was economy more SOUND during 1800s than during 1900s and 2000s? Of-course. USA became the biggest producer, the biggest creditor, it paid out all debt, so it didn't have any, it produced quality things people wanted - actual wealth, it caused money to increase in value - a win for the working people, who could buy more with same.
The only people who are afraid of deflation and want inflation instead, are people with most debt, who do not stand a chance of being able to actually pay the debt out in real money - real production. That's government. It's the gov't that basically benefits from destruction of monetary system that it hijacks.
Your argument is invalid, and that's why - other prices are not rising, except for some commodities.
- Rising consumer prices will be coming to USA once it cannot DISPOSE of its US dollars and bonds to producer nations.
European countries that are in trouble are at least implementing austerity measures, however ECB is also printing and it is also pushing the Euro down.
Bank of Japan is also printing, especially now, though this is ridiculous, they should be cashing in their foreign holdings (US T-bills, dollars), because if they are scared to cash in the US debt now, when they really need to buy a lot of stuff, so they really need to appreciate their curerency, then it shows just how pathetic the entire concept of 'reserve currency' is, that you can't use it even in a real, serious, extreme emergency, that Japan is experiencing, because you are trying still to prop up the US consumer.
My argument is absolutely correct. You are not understanding that USA is printing dollars to buy consumer goods that are created in other countries, mostly in Asia. So the Asian economy must buy the commodities - raw materials, that are used to produce the goods, then the Asians send these goods to USA, which pays in printed cash, then Asia based companies take the printed cash and convert it into their local currency by bringing the cash to the banks, and the central bank (which they also have unfortunately), then prints their currency to buy the US dollars.
So you are not seeing the prices go up in USA, because those dollars end up collecting in foreign central banks, but you do see the commodity prices going up, because they are being bought with printed money. All of this causes the Asians to subsidize the USA consumer, by allowing the US prices to stay very low.
What Japan really ought to be doing (and probably will end up doing) is dumping the US debt. Today the US bond buyers are all central banks, including US Fed. The private parties are all selling. This is because all national banks operate under assumption that they can always print more currency, so they are not worried, but this process pushes prices of all currencies down, while forcing commodities up.
Now, in USA the end-consumer prices are not rising yet, but across the world they are rising. This entire situation with the Arab nations rebelling is based on the fact, that 80% of their income goes towards food and energy, so for them the prices are rising sharply, thus there are rebellions.
Also saying that there is no inflation in Eurozone is misleading. Prices are going up in Eurozone in real terms, even if they stay in check in nominal terms, because Euro is losing grounds, the austerity measures end up cutting plenty of social obligation support, so people basically end up with less money for the same basket of goods. In Europe there are price controls, for example in Germany the Italian pasta costs 1/3-1/5 as much as it costs in Italy due to price controls (all of this is terrible for the overall economy and never works in the long term), so you see Italians actually crossing the border, coming to Germany to buy their own food.
As to 'peak oil' - certainly, there is this, there are trouble all over the Middle East, but the oil is just one of all commodities, and all of them are rising.
Cotton, sugar, rice, wheat, pork, metals, coffee, etc.etc.etc., everything is near or at or much above their historic averages and in some cases historic highs.
Yeah, fix itself in the sense "emasculate". Right into the Greatest Depression. Fiat money is one of the greatest inventions of the 20-th century.
- Great Depression was caused by the gov't spending into a recession it also caused. The 1920 recession was worse than 1929 (and worse than 2008) in terms of total job losses, however Harding turned it around by cutting 70% of gov't spending. 1920 recession was caused by Fed printing since 1913.
The 1929 recession was caused by Fed propping up Bri
wrong, the $147 bbl crude is the aftermath of what actually causes recession - money printing.
That's right. Recessions are caused by mis-allocated resources, but governments cause recessions by printing money and propping up various businesses, inflating asset bubbles, all of which leads to mis-allocated resources.
Of-course in this case that USA is in now, the government also has destroyed the capital savings by all the printing, but also it grew too much, and through its growth, it has created too many rules/regulations/monopolies.
A working economy can afford a government, even if the government is grossly overweight, but an economy that is losing capital investment through inflation (money printing) and capital/jobs flight (regulations, income taxes, subsidies to preferred businesses), such an economy cannot afford to have government that taxes income and mis-allocates funds further through government departments and programs.
The $147 bbl crude is just a RESULT of the inflation, which is monetary expansion - printing. It's not just crude, it's all commodities and energy.
Stop the money printing, cut the government by an amount that would return it to pre-1913 levels, and you'll allow the economy to fix itself.
also they are twice as good at doing half the nothing. They run empty infinite loops at half the power too.
tihs esroh
this opens a possibility that even the modern, newest computers, with gigabytes of RAM and multiple processors/cores won't be enough to do a basic thing without nearly hanging the entire machine.
Nothing is too big to fail, this includes nations and the planet. However if we decide that a corporation or a government is really too big to fail, then it's really too big to exist
I'm not going to go into a full explanation here, because explaining the operation of a differential is beyond this comment.
- however it can be explained in a video
The important thing to understand here is that Mr Oehmen is in USA, probably somewhere around MIT and the nuclear power plants are in Japan, so he really should not be worried about that too much.
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I kid, I kid.
There is no graphite in Japanese reactors to burn and accelerate the fission process. It is literally impossible to have Chernobyl there because there is no graphite there.
s follow wikipedia on this, shall we?
- what is not silly about following some wikipedia?
Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit.
- capitalism is about investment. Investment can only be done through savings.
Savings lead to investment and investment leads to owning means of production, whatever those means are. There is nothing special about the means of production themselves, you do not even have to own anything, all you have to do is invest into something, whether it's a factory or an invention or a bunch of people playing with their dicks. If this makes money - you are an investor for the purposes of profit.
Investing savings to get profit is capitalism. It's not about production in itself, it's about investment.
Note that saving/investing does not get explicitly mentioned here.
- because it's a stupid definition. You may have capital in the form of gold. You may have capital in the form of a factory floor or some tool or some instrument or some invention or maybe rights to some copyrighted materials, like a painting by Leonardo, etc.
Capital does not have to be 'tools of production' itself, it just has to be some sort of a thing with value that you saved, that you own and that you are willing to (re)invest in order to make some profit but also with a risk of a loss.
Learn to think for yourself, wikipedia is not sent from some space god on a freaking stone, it's a burning bush either.
one correction: 200 years ago there were around 1 billion people, so that's not 15 times, but close to 7-8, whatever the number of billion on the planet today.
They caused major shift in population, major advancement in human lives in every way possible. Should they not have done that? You and I most likely wouldn't be alive and definitely wouldn't be using computers, talking on the Internet.
You made assumptions based only on a small amount of information.
- that's all we have here, small amount of information. You said you want capitalism stopped, so you don't want people to have machines that will do all their work for them? Why not? That's the goal.
It encourages greed.
- so what does not encourage greed? Government? That would be funny.
Capitalism does not 'encourage' greed, it feeds off of greed. Greed is the primary mover, capitalism is just a logical outcome, a system that is designed by humans to provide most out of that desire. So really, are you against capitalism or are you against greed? Because if you are against actual greed, you'd be surprised to find out that greed exists whether capitalism exists or not.
Clearly in North Korea capitalism does not exist. Do you think greed doesn't exist there either? What about their greedy dictator and his son?
Leech off of your own subordinates to make a profit.
- oh yeah? I see both sides: the subordinate is leeching off of the business owner. The subordinate gets paid month to month, regardless if the owner gets paid or not, because first things first: for company to exist, salaries and rent and bills and taxes and debt must be paid first, the owner gets whatever is left.
If the owner is smart enough to make the business profitable, then by the end of the day, he will have good amount in profit that's left over after paying every single thing he must pay. If he is not smart or maybe just doing the wrong thing in the wrong time, he will have losses. If he invested his own money, he'll lose it.
90% of businesses fail. That's 90% of risk takers fail. That's 90% of investments do not succeed to provide profit. That's still businesses that are paying salaries and bills etc., only the owner doesn't get paid (and whoever the investors are, be it the owner himself or others.) YOU are the one with the simplistic POV. Have you ever ran a business? Have you ever had to meet payroll, sign checks, pay bills for every day expenses for that business while not seeing the profits? Have you ever risked anything to get something back?
Yes, the business model that USA has currently: get insured by gov't through subsidies/regulations, take risks with impossible odds, due to gov't subsidies and laws, fail, get bailed out by gov't, take that money, buy US bonds, declare sky high profits - that's fucked up, but that's NOT capitalism. That's the opposite of capitalism, because there is no actual investor.
There is coercion of people by gov't to pay taxes and all those things described above happen automagically. Then there are creditor nations and the printing press. Well, US gov't will end up destroying US dollar. Not much time left before that happens. US bond market will collapse (it already is collapsing, 71% of purchases are national banks and 29% is Fed, no private buyers, only private sellers).
It causes much corruption among government, among other things.
- oh yeah? It's not capitalism that causes gov't corruption. It's corruption of the people that causes gov't corruption. It's greed that causes gov't corruption. Do you think in non-capitalist North Korea or USSR there is/was no gov't corruption? Venezuela? Cuba?
What should be done is something that cannot be done: gov't must be prohibited from collecting income taxes, passing regulations on businesses, subsidizing businesses, subsidizing people.
Subsidizing people - this is the reason why there is gov't corruption. People want something for nothing, they'll vote for it every time. Politicians tax income, print money (Fed+Treasury) and they buy votes. Once voters can be bought, there will be corruption in government, because nobody will be standing up for actual principles.
It often results in destruction.
- capitalism? Everything people do results in destruction. Do you
I do. I actually care about the planet and the well being of future generations. If I can reasonably extent the amount of time it takes for a resource to be depleted, I will attempt to do so.
- clearly you do not. You just said some time earlier that you think capitalism should be stopped because "it's bad" or something?
So if there is a system that can give everyone everything and it's created through deflation by increased efficiencies due to profit motive of companies, who try to outperform each other and to capture the market, all of this while trying to make profit, if this system succeeds at providing 'replicators' and you are saying the resources are plenty and so is energy, then again:
1. Why do you want to stop capitalism?
2. Why do you want people to work where machines can clearly outperform them and provide them with the outcome of that work with 0 human energy expended?
3. Aren't you admitting that if resource/energy depletion is a problem in a capitalist system, which produces everything that's needed, then there ARE problems that machines are not solving that need solutions? Soylent Green perhaps?
4. If you care about future generations, wouldn't you wish them to achieve this point in time, where all of their needs are taken care of by machines?
Here is the actual problem: what's the point of future generations?
What is the point of existing if everything you need is provided?
If people decide that they have nothing to do, they may end up committing mass suicide somehow from complete boredom OR they will find things to do.
Do you even understand that people are pushed forward by a desire to show off to their peers, and this is why most discretionary spending is done by people? If they are not fulfilling their survival needs, then they are doing things just for reasons they come up with from thin air: having a bigger house than the Johnsons, having more cars, more money, bigger yard, prettier wife, more kids (or maybe fewer, depends what's in style that decade).
People are CONSTANTLY 'wasting' energy and resources on discretionary stuff, that is really not needed for their survival. It's because once you get past the survival needs, there is NOTHING for you to do, but what you come up with by yourself.
I could not care less about people, who will not find things to occupy themselves with and who'd just sit there idle, watching some stupid TV show.
Don't you understand that there is nothing to do once you have all your basic needs taken care of? That everything we do is because we don't know what to do with ourselves?
"The future generations" you care so much about will have exactly the same problem, they will have to solve theirs, I don't give a shit, I have mine to solve. I am not making 'holier than though' statements about not wasting more than absolute minimum of resources.
What am I, a mushroom, just to sit there, wallowing happy in some moisture and some sun light? Fucking bullshit.
What's the point of that? That just sounds like an inefficient waste of resources to me.
- care to explain what higher purpose does your life serve rather than just expending resources? Whether you are doing it efficiently or not, who gives a shit?
It sounds like, at this point, capitalism is pointless and shouldn't even exist (not that I think that it is good now).
- Then you are not just blind but also not too bright. If capitalism leads to this unlikely outcome, then all our desires have been fulfilled, all hopes answered.
You see how stupid this is? Do you really think people will have a point in time when they will just not want anything more than they have at a point right before that one? It makes no sense, it's pure nonsense.
If I have 1000 jet fighters, I may want 1000000 of them, why not? If I have 10000 hookers surrounding me with love and care, I just may want 10000000 of them, I'll be 1000 times more cared for then. There is no stopping the desire to have more.
Capitalism is a system that is used to move towards this goal (I am not sure about the hooker part, but basically). Is capitalism good or bad?
I don't care if it's good or bad as long as it's giving me what I want at ever lower prices.
Really? In the presence of true artificial intelligence, which ones are those?
- AI that can do what? Answer this first: what the hell do you think AI can do? Can it simulate human thoughts with all the needs and wants? How is it different from humans then, if it can? What does AI want? Maybe it'll be smart enough to stop wanting to work for you?
Hookers - there will always be need for hookers - there. AI doesn't matter in that profession at all.
Human based philosophy - because AI can never be a human unless it gets to a point where it has human bodies and problems and limitations and needs and wants, etc.
Fighting wars based on hate - how about this useful purely human endeavor? Not very productive, but can be used to pass all the time in the world.
Politics - unless they invent an AI system that can be as slimy as human politicians, I doubt that's going to happen.
In any case, there will be new ideas that I can't even come up with because I have never seen it, just like 200 years ago a farmer couldn't come up with genetic programming.
I explained 'what then' in that unlikely hypothetical a few comments back.
THEN you have cost of production = 0.
THEN you have no reason for anybody to work, as 'replication' of whatever products would be achieved at that cost of 0. (0 effort expended by a human.)
THEN you end up with a replicator per person.
This is stupid. I know of plenty of professions that will not disappear just because machines can do them too.
That's because your understanding of 'useful work' is limited to what you know.
It's like asking a Neanderthal - would it be useful for him if somebody gave him a cellphone. He doesn't know WTF that is. He doesn't have any idea about it, about new industries and possibilities that he could have with it.
The point is exactly that 200 years ago people were saying this same shit about machine automation.
Why should we WANT people to work doing whatever they do today? It's trivial, what we do today. We need to do something new, that's not trivial. This is exactly what genetics would sound like to a guy 200 years ago - not trivial.
Once again, you're not thinking of the scenario
- really? I just presented that scenario in stupid enough detail for you, what's the problem? You can't read? The comment is mostly made of that exact proposition, that there is nothing for humans to do because machines do everything. If that's the case, then cost of human labor is 0, because there nothing anybody wants from anybody that any person can do.
This is what the comment was about, and you are telling me I didn't think of that scenario? English, motherfucker, can you read it?
95% of people fed by 5% of people is not close enough to 'all workers' for you?
What did people do? Invented new industries.
I am not trolling, I am not paying attention to your drivel. Trust buster you want? How about busting the government? Maybe government shouldn't be in business of creating monopolies in the first place?
I'll add one more thing to my earlier comment here.
If all of a sudden all of the jobs were completely automated, and people did NOT invent any new industries, because let's say for the sake of an argument there is nothing more to invent, then what?
Well then it's easy. If all of the people's needs and desires are completely automated, nobody wants to hire anybody, that would mean that this abundance of products would not be purchased, and prices would go down.
If all of the tasks are automated, if machines fix machines, machines build machines, machines make everything, then if humans cannot buy those products for consumption due to lack of money, the prices would fall dramatically. What good is a trillion doughnuts if nobody is buying? Well, you can eat some doughnuts yourself, but you can't eat a trillion.
Let's say there are mining machines, energy producing machines, transport machines, refining machines, manufacturing machines, marketing machines, art machines, health dispensing machines, etc.etc. This would mean that there is complete abundance and nothing for humans to do.
Well isn't that the goal - to do nothing at the end? Why are people working? So they can get things for themselves. What if things were so cheap, so abundant, that people could work for 1 day in a year to make enough salary to sustain insane level of luxury for the year?
But if they can't get any jobs at all, no matter what, if they can't make 1 cent, then what? They can't buy anything. However what is the COST of production in a completely automated environment, with completely automated maintenance solutions, etc?
What is that cost for humans? It's 0.
What you get is your silly replicator. Not necessarily in the form of a small replicator tool, but basically you push a button to start a process of a machine building a machine, machine supplying energy and other resources, machine bringing it all together, machine manufacturing parts, assembly machine, packaging and transportation to the end customer.
IF, IF it were possible, then ANYBODY could have this done - anybody could have their own completely automated solution to all life's needs. Nobody would be buying or selling anything. Everybody would have everything - total communism.
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Is this feasible? Is it going to happen?
Of-course not. It's not going to happen because the resources are not infinite, because energy is not infinite, because we do not have answers to all questions.
You are shortsighted because you think that people really need to work where they work today to have a better future, and they have to work there forever. This is not true. Majority of questions are not answered yet, they are not even asked yet. Machines can do work and take away production of so many things, and this is what's happening now with so many technologies.
Why are computers falling in price or doing more and more for the same price? It's because in those industries certain level of automation is achieved that makes it possible to recoup the costs very quickly and to lower prices. All that's needed is free market without gov't meddling with it, and allowing the market to bring the costs so much down, it's near 0.
Deflation is good. Deflation is the best thing for society - as costs are approaching zero and efficiencies are approaching maximum. Cost of labor approaches zero slower, because there is always things that people can do, that machines do not. So deflation is net gain for the wealth of society, and this means that automation to the maximum possible is the best thing for society too.
You are a modern version of a Luddite, just as panicky, just as shortsighted.