I thought we should have a thread focusing on the economic issues for 2020.
Some ideas for topics:
Is the deficit/debt a concern?
How much should we tax the rich?
Should billionaires exist?
How much should we regulate Wall Street?
Will Modern Monetary Theory have a role?
Should we do something about the Fed? Do they have too much power?
Is automation really a significant threat in the near future? Is it any different than the last 200 years of automation?
UBI?
Forgive all medical debt?
Forgive all student debt?
Free college for anyone?
How do we pay for all this crap?
If the government spends money on something like the GND or infrastructure (by buying stuff and creating jobs) is that really a "cost" to us?
Kevin Hassett, Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro? Is this some sort of cosmic joke? Very funny God.
Can you trust an economist these days?
Is it even possible to have rational national discussions about the economy when our economic reporting is so crappy?
Whatever happened to the Austrians?
p.s.
Anyone who tries to make an analogy between the federal budget and your household budget will be ridiculed and disqualified from further participation in this thread. You have been warned.
Glad I read down to the bottom as a few years ago I made such a comparison and was ridiculed but shrugged it off so I was going to jump in anyway, but the disqualification has given me pause.
However, I am that voter who is skeptical of promises of free goodies. So I guess I would pick from that list,
I thought we should have a thread focusing on the economic issues for 2020.
Some ideas for topics:
Is the deficit/debt a concern?
How much should we tax the rich?
Should billionaires exist?
How much should we regulate Wall Street?
Will Modern Monetary Theory have a role?
Should we do something about the Fed? Do they have too much power?
Is automation really a significant threat in the near future? Is it any different than the last 200 years of automation?
UBI?
Forgive all medical debt?
Forgive all student debt?
Free college for anyone?
How do we pay for all this crap?
If the government spends money on something like the GND or infrastructure (by buying stuff and creating jobs) is that really a "cost" to us?
Kevin Hassett, Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro? Is this some sort of cosmic joke? Very funny God.
Can you trust an economist these days?
Is it even possible to have rational national discussions about the economy when our economic reporting is so crappy?
Whatever happened to the Austrians?
p.s.
Anyone who tries to make an analogy between the federal budget and your household budget will be ridiculed and disqualified from further participation in this thread. You have been warned.
can we also disqualify anyone who says we can't pay for universal health coverage if that person doesn't demand that we repeal the 2017 tax bill because we obviously couldn't pay for it.
I'm not convinced that robotics (or automation in general) is going to be any more significant in the near future than the automation that we've had to deal with in the past. We've been dealing with automation for hundreds of years (longer, depending on how you define it) and we've gotten by ok. As you displace certain jobs, new ones are created.
It's true that as AI becomes more sophisticated, we'll be replacing jobs that are not just "manual" in nature but that are more knowledge based.
Regardless - it seems that policy options are limited. You either slow down the rate of automation through regulation, or you let it run it's course and provide assistance to workers who are displaced, or just do nothing and hope everything works out, which is usually what we've done.
I'm not convinced that robotics (or automation in general) is going to be any more significant in the near future than the automation that we've had to deal with in the past. We've been dealing with automation for hundreds of years (longer, depending on how you define it) and we've gotten by ok. As you displace certain jobs, new ones are created.
It's true that as AI becomes more sophisticated, we'll be replacing jobs that are not just "manual" in nature but that are more knowledge based.
Regardless - it seems that policy options are limited. You either slow down the rate of automation through regulation, or you let it run it's course and provide assistance to workers who are displaced, or just do nothing and hope everything works out, which is usually what we've done.
Is there anything else to do?
the elevator operators and buggy whip workers unions agree with you
I think the automation issue is really a taxation issue. Automation has helped make workers far more productive, which is great. This in turn has helped generate a lot more wealth, also great. But most of those gains end up getting captured by CEOs and high level executives, rather than more broadly. This isn't a rising tide lifting all boats, it's a diversion of the tide into a few private wells.
Add more tax levels, with much higher rates, to disincentive this sequestering, and let market dynamics do their thing -- make it cheaper for companies to redistribute those gains more broadly rather than storing them in CEO compensation packages.
I know from first hand experience that dramatic numbers of service industry jobs are going to vanish in the US (and globally) in the next few years. If you work for a company in the middle or back office and you are doing repetitive work on data and forms - reading them, decisioning them, filing them, etc - your job is toast if your company is getting into robotics. It's here, it's real and it cannot be stopped.
Yes there is going to be huge displacement and new roles will emerge...but I don't think the number of new jobs will equal the number of jobs lost.
I know from first hand experience that dramatic numbers of service industry jobs are going to vanish in the US (and globally) in the next few years. If you work for a company in the middle or back office and you are doing repetitive work on data and forms - reading them, decisioning them, filing them, etc - your job is toast if your company is getting into robotics. It's here, it's real and it cannot be stopped.
Yes there is going to be huge displacement and new roles will emerge...but I don't think the number of new jobs will equal the number of jobs lost.
sbenois, rarely do I agree with you. In this instance, I do agree with you. IMHO, AI is significantly different than mere automation (which has been ongoing since the beginning of the industrial revolution). As a result, AI will have more significant consequences regarding the elimination of existing positions. And, also affecting the types of new positions that are created.
"We are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity... the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining." —STEPHEN HAWKING
“The concerns underlying these votes about the economic consequences of globalisation and accelerating technological change are absolutely understandable. The automation of factories has already decimated jobs in traditional manufacturing, and the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.
“This in turn will accelerate the already widening economic inequality around the world. The internet and the platforms that it makes possible allow very small groups of individuals to make enormous profits while employing very few people. This is inevitable, it is progress, but it is also socially destructive.”
...
“For me, the really concerning aspect of this is that now, more than at any time in our history, our species needs to work together. We face awesome environmental challenges: climate change, food production, overpopulation, the decimation of other species, epidemic disease, acidification of the oceans.
“Together, they are a reminder that we are at the most dangerous moment in the development of humanity.”
Predictions are hard, especially about the future...
There is no way to know whether AI, machine learning, robotics, etc. will take over more jobs than will be created. So there is no consensus, with some futurists predicting doomsday for jobs, and others saying that automation will create new job opportunities that will balance out the losses. And still others are saying that the job destruction will not happen as quickly as some predict, giving societies time to adapt to the changes.
A good example is advertising sales, which in digital media is now largely taken over by programmatic trading desks. But programmatic buying and selling hasn't eliminated jobs. This article suggests that the jobs lost in traditional advertising are now being created in technology companies like Facebook and Google. The jobs haven't disappeared, they've been reclassified as technology jobs instead of advertising jobs.
The top question DB posted - Is the deficit/debt a concern?
Here's the results of a recent poll - National budget/debt polled at 0% right under beating democrats at 1%. College costs/ student debt polled at 1% as well.
I thought we should have a thread focusing on the economic issues for 2020.
Some ideas for topics:
Is the deficit/debt a concern?
How much should we tax the rich?
Should billionaires exist?
How much should we regulate Wall Street?
Will Modern Monetary Theory have a role?
Should we do something about the Fed? Do they have too much power?
Is automation really a significant threat in the near future? Is it any different than the last 200 years of automation?
UBI?
Forgive all medical debt?
Forgive all student debt?
Free college for anyone?
How do we pay for all this crap?
If the government spends money on something like the GND or infrastructure (by buying stuff and creating jobs) is that really a "cost" to us?
Kevin Hassett, Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro? Is this some sort of cosmic joke? Very funny God.
Can you trust an economist these days?
Is it even possible to have rational national discussions about the economy when our economic reporting is so crappy?
Whatever happened to the Austrians?
p.s.
Anyone who tries to make an analogy between the federal budget and your household budget will be ridiculed and disqualified from further participation in this thread. You have been warned.