gbaji wrote:
They said the same thing about the internal combustion engine and its impact on manual farming. What you are missing is that as we reduce the number of people required to perform existing tasks, we free up that labor to do new things, generating greater total productive output and wealth for all. The pursuit of "protecting jobs" is IMO the wrong way to approach this.
But where do we put those people? Into other jobs, where do the people from those jobs go? Jobs don't magically appear when jobs are lost. You don't need to pay robots they don't need to eat/sleep/sh*t. You can cut the bottom line by getting robots, but where do these people go that are no longer required, and how do they survive. They are still required to pay their way through life, its not all rainbows and sunshine when jobs are lost, you don't get a vacation when you are unemployed, have a mortgage, have family to feed, and support.
You can tout how awesome the assembly line, and the robotic welder and the UAV are, but in the end someone loses a job, an its not a fantasy land like it was made out to be, it is sh*tsville.
Quote:
I'm not sure what this fragment was supposed to say, but are the poor worse off today than they were say a century ago? I don't think so. In fact, I'd argue that they are vastly better off, most of which has nothing at all to do with government programs.
That fragment was supposed to be part of the previous section I just happened to hit period and not coma. Poor is poor, its not from a health stand point its from a psychological stand point, and an ethical stand point. Most poor people are more likely to commit a crime to get a step ahead in life. Don't know if you have been lucky enough to avoid it or not, I am assuming you have in your nice cushy office and likely white collar job. You tell the auto workers all around Michigan that its their fault hey don't have work, tell them to quit being lazy good for nothings when the job they have worked on since they were young is gone to a robot or down sizing because the company had a bad day on wall street. Most people do not like being poor, or not well off, most people do not like asking for help from others, most people would prefer to be able to handle their lives themselves. But when you lose a job and it is the only thing you have ever done, who do you turn to then.
Quote:
You're either lying, or you haven't had a raise or promotion or upward job move in 20 years. It's not about how much each dollar buys you, but how much an hour of your labor does. And every stat I've seen shows that an hour of labor doing the same job today as 20 years ago buys you the same relative amount of dollars (compared to staple goods), and those dollars go farther when buying non staple goods (like computers, ipods, cellphones, TVs, etc). The areas where costs have gone up have been housing (which was a bubble and is correcting), and health care (which is its own animal). Someone with 20 years more experience should be earning more relatively speaking than he was 20 years ago. If you aren't, you're doing it wrong.
You sir are and idiot I am sorry but this is stupid as hell. I do earn more, quite a lot more. But guess what, I also spend more, on basic needs like electricity/water/nat gas/food. The only thing that hasn't changed is the cost to pay for my house which is a locked in fix rate. Everything else has gotten more expensive. How can you sit there and say a dollar has the same buying power as it did 10/20 years ago hell a dollar can't even get me 1 litre of gas anymore. A dollar isn't enough to buy a bottle of water. You are very very naive if you think the value of each dollar you have isn't worth less. Unless you don't pay your own bills, buy your own food, pay for your own gas, pay for your own extracurricular you are the most ignorant person I have ever had the misfortune of meeting.
Quote:
What country do you live in? If it's the US, then your experience is counter to what nearly ever other citizen experiences (Aside from temporary issues, the vast majority of people are better off after 20 years in the labor market than they were starting out). If not, then have you considered that the reason why your labor doesn't seem to be helping you as much so that you need those communist/socialist programs is *because* of the cost of those very programs? Kinda self fulfilling, isn't it?
You realize it would cost me more to have health insurance in the states than I pay a year in taxes? You are pretty naive, but thats ok most americans are when it comes to social programs, they seem to think that they have some extraordinary cost that is insane. How much do you think it costs for you to have health insurance, I would wager more than 1500 a year, wouldn't you.
Quote:
Yes. Because all your labor does is make other people rich. I'm thinking there's a bit of "woe is me" exaggeration going on here. I call BS.
I work to pay bills, I work to buy food, I work to have fun. When I am at work the company profits of what I do in a day, when I pay bills the owner/operator of the service profits from me paying for that service, when I buy food the farmers and stores in which I buy from profit on the sale, when I go have fun said establishment profits on me being their. Everything I do with the money I make is profits to someone else, while at work I am earning profits for those people.
That all trickles up hill to a very few amount of individuals by comparison to the amount putting in in the end. So yes my labor does make others rich, and considering 2/3 non work related things I listed are needed to survive, and working makes profits (otherwise the job would be redundant).
Edited, Oct 12th 2010 7:57pm by rdmcandie