What To Do About The Long-Term Implications of Automation

I don't really think removing the cap on SS benefits is being prevented by an argument that it isn't fair. SS is mostly a welfare system for retirees. The people who make the least during their lifetime get proportionally greater that those who make more. Which is appropriate, in my opinion. If I someone said to a Congressman that it isn't fair to remove the cap, I hope he'd just say, "Sorry, I think it is, and we need to keep SS solvent. This SS system is not your 401K."

I think the cap is not being removed because the wealthy just donate enough money to keep it from happening.

Not that it matters a lot. We still need to figure out a way to get things like this passed.

 

If we were to remove the cap, I'd like to see the money being used to fund people below the poverty level with their payment for SS and medicare. Someone that makes that little and is working needs every boost they can get.

 

Of course I never said live as animals do- but we are indeed animals, and we do live under the same natural principles of life that animals do.
And if case you hadn't noticed- every animal species on earth can do things that humans cannot do at all, or fail miserably at.

They can thrive using nothing but what nature gave them.
They don't need governments, religions, police, psychiatrists or any of the things we need to keep us from destroying ourselves.
They don't drug themselves or drink themselves into useless stupor or death.
They don't borrow on the future and endanger the lives and welfare of future generations.
They don't plunder the earth's irreplaceable resources.
They don't go around attacking civilizations around the world for philosophical or political reasons.
They don't trash or poison the world they live in.
It's a much longer list, but this should be enough to make the point.

If you think on that for a minute, you can see that if we could live and thrive without doing those uniquely human things we do-
we would indeed be better off.... living in part, as animals live. Instead, we are the first and no doubt only species in history that will probably be the cause of our own extinction, and sadly- take most other species with us when we do that. Hardly a claim to be proud of.

Perhaps, the animals know something we don't know about living successfully.
Perhaps we should stop being so arrogant about our own ideas, and ask what they know that we obviously don't.
Not live as animals do- but take a few hints on doing better than we are now.

 

Well, we certainly will all need to adapt. BUT we better do some big time planning also. The number of jobs eliminated in manufacturing is small potatoes compared to those that will be eliminated (or drastically reduced) by self driving vehicles. Think of all the cab drivers, truckers, delivery people, etc. and all the retailers that will be put out by more online shopping. That is a huge number! Then think of the turmoil we have had with just the loss of manufacturing jobs. The amount of populism generated would really be scary. Populism often leads to political results that aren't very appealing. Lenin and Hitler come to mind.

So we better start figuring out what we can do. One of the things we should do IMO is to not let the rich get even richer. It is far easier to be of modest means if you don't see rich folks living like the French aristocracy, when there was one. The very rich should take note. (This is not a personal threat, by the way.)

 

"Welfare" S.S. is fully paid for .... by those who drive benefit from it.

 

Here's a thought about how to have more people doing lower skilled jobs. If you have blue collar workers out of work, anything they produce would be beneficial. Especially, if one of the ways govt helps is to enhance the earned income credit. This would have to be tied in with tax laws, but if you increase taxes on the wealthy and use the new money to increase the earned income credit, then lower paid people would get a top up of earnings. Hopefully enough that they could live a reasonable life.

Anyway, about the jobs for people out of work. Let's say we have a guy making shoes. Someone else out of work grows vegetables. Let's also say neither person can make them fast enough or well enough to compete in a capitalist system. But, could we not have a barter system or maybe some other type monetary system. Again, if for instance I am out of work, I can do nothing. Or I can make shoes and have something that someone else would want and the guy growing tomatoes needs shoes.

Then figure in the Earned Income Credit somehow to fit this barter system. Or better yet, figure out how to work in payment of money in the system. Bartering is an inconvenient system. I can't see how to do that myself, but maybe one of you has an idea.

 

I'm sorry, but I don't get your point. Can you lengthen your answer a bit?

 

You characterized S.S. as "welfare for retired people". I disagree with that.

 

You seem to be saying that if there is nothing to compare yourself to that is on a higher level, nothing to aspire to, we will all be happy and satisfied with being less.
I hope you wouldn't believe that is something to be desired. There will always be men who will excel beyond most all others- and men who could care less about excelling.
We make our lives what they are; if we are envious, it is the weakness in us and not the abilities in others that make it so.

Automation changes how we live- but so long as people have ideas to make things, to improve life, to expand the purpose or experience- things will come along to replace jobs. Automation creates opportunity; some doors close and new ones open. That has been true since the invention of the wheel. It is change, it is adaptation, but it is not the loss of the ability to grow or thrive.

 

might makes right belongs to both the human and animal kingdoms, in order for humans to evolve they must eat their weak or leave them behind so they are not a drain on resources.

humans would still be hunter gatherers in small tribes instead of in mighty evolved civilisations if they did not live like animals. capitalism is only compassionate at the discretion of the religion which allows it to practice in America.

unfortunately the 4 phased approach can only be trusted for mercy in russia, because it has no history in the new world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_shall_he_eat

 

We agree that there is a degree of divisiveness that has reached levels that are dangerous IMO. We the People need to remember that what we have in common as Americans far exceeds the petty differences that are being exploited to divide us.

I am going to take you back just 2 decades to where we were in 1998. We had a booming economy with well paid jobs with benefits and low unemployment. Everyone was making money because raises and bonuses were willingly paid by corporations. Why did that end? Why did those wages stagnate and bonuses evaporate? Why do only the wealthy 1% now get the benefit of all of the hard work put in by our fellow Americans?

The facile answers are all out there but the underlying cause is what needs to be addressed IMO. Forget the political pablum that lays the blame for partisan political purposes and instead think about the functionality of the CONSUMER economy itself. For that kind of economy to function there must always be DISPOSABLE income which means that wages/bonuses must exceed the daily expenses of food, shelter, transportation, etc, etc. That disposable income was eroded and replaced by draining down the wealth in assets like homes. Then that too dried up and was gone which left nothing, not even jobs, because there were outsourced to other nations.

In essence the American middle class has gone from hardworking employees to impoverished and unemployed facing a bleak retirement with only Social Security to keep the hunger at bay.

This is a very real threat to our nation and it can only be solved by compromise. However it means that We the People have to recognize that the situation we are in is because the social contract where we agreed that if we worked hard all our lives we would be able to afford what we wanted and needed has been violated.

We need a new social contract and it must incorporate how we are going to survive in an automated age.

 

So think about it and then adapt.

 

I'm a bit surprised. You responded- but evaded the very clear and obvious point that my post made, editing that content out of your response.

I've read many of your posts- and I thought you a better person than that, one who would not dodge a sound point to continue on a weak one.
I'll remember next time.

 

I agree.
The minimum wage should only be eliminated when subsidies are in place for low wage unskilled labor.

 

I pointed out several ways in which the animals of the world have the capacity to manage their lives in fashion far superior to what we do, and suggested that there is reason to learn from them- not dismiss living in harmony, not trashing their world, not needing masses of forces to keep them from insanity.... things like that. Now if you think that is living like animals and is to be avoided, you should be happy- because we are the real "animals". We don't know how to do those things- and some of us are too arrogant, too superior to realize how pitifully we manage things. First step is solving problems is to realize you have problems. Second step is to find answers- and often, that is models of functionality that you can learn from and adapt to the problems you need to solve.

In this case it is simply asking ourselves why we can't learn from what those "dumb animals" do. Most people insist on thinking of them as dumb in order to feel superior, and god forbid we would consider them smarter than us in any way- thus admitting they do what we cannot, things we might learn from, would be degrading. That seems to be your point.
We learn from nature all the time- Velcro is only a copy of the cockleburr, for instance. However, that is not an animal, and we do not wish to acknowledge that we are animals- so it would be degrading to realize they master their world everyday, while we trash ours. I'm not sure you are aware that we do that.

If there is a question for you- why not?

 

the minimum wage instills work ethic in otherwise lazy humans, it is corporate and government charity which serves as a stepping stone to a better life for the poor.

lower wages gives people incentive to want to better themselves, and earn higher wages with education or skilled labor jobs like oil drilling.

 

To follow up on this- Calling social security welfare is indeed false, because if you are receiving it, you had to pay into it. It is to some extent like an insurance, in that what you get out is not directly proportional to what you put in. You can die at 64, having paid in all your life, and get nothing.

I've been drawing SS for 11 years. However, I'm also making a substantial amount of money, and I'm self employed- so I pay in 12% of my income. And, because of rules on income levels, I pay income tax on the social security benefits I get. While benefits do get adjusted eventually for income changes, I had one year that was actually negative; I paid in more than the net I received. I am one of those who will never catch up and draw all I've paid in, let alone what it would have made in interest if it had been invested. This is almost always found in high income earners over the eligible age- the same people most of the complainers talk about.

 

it is welfare because many who collect don't really need it, more accurately it is a reparation system where the rich classes subsidizes the slave classes.

the 'headmasters', or millionaires and billionaires, don't pay any reparations.

 

Well- the typical theme of liberalism is to take from those who produce, give it to those who don't, and call it righteous justice.

Abraham Lincoln told people like that "The fact some people are rich was proof that others could become rich- and rather than tear down your neighbors house, you should be building your own".

 

First get everybody employed. Then decide how much automation will be kept, and how much automation will be thrown down in the septic tank.

 

agreed, when the tariffs and huge wall create upward pressure on wages home builders will profit even more in real estate investments.

 

End of the 18th century, 90% of the population was involved in Agriculture. Today with technology its about 2% and that 2% produces far beyond what the 90% could. We will be just fine.