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I think the work force will just transition to entertainment/service and arts related jobs. Or hell maybe even space travel or whatever, it is hard to know what will be available I'm sure pre 1970 or even 1990 nobody thought programmer and so so would be a viable job.
I think UBI is cool and would be a great addition but I don't think it fixes all or even most of the social problems, many of which are bad choices, often because of bad situation, bad parenting, whatever. For example if someone has a drug addiction or to be less dramatic shopping issue a check every month really isn't going to change much for them and almost nothing for their children.
I do think it would raise the floor of society which is a very good thing, and now we also need to lower the ceiling. It would be a pretty cool world where people could choose to be a struggling artist or musician or whatever and struggling meant they could comfortably raise a family of four with their kids having all the options of post secondary or whatever it was that they wanted.
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On May 16 2019 01:59 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2019 01:32 Grumbels wrote: There is a Dutch sociologist that has a concept called cognitive capitalism, which states that nowadays more and more value is derived from marketing and knowledge production, rather than from the raw manufacture. This is evident in brand management and in the financialization of many common services. If you get some credit from a warehouse to buy branded shoes you are probably going to pay hundreds of dollars to purchase a product that costs 5 bucks to make. The actual shoe is almost besides the point, most of the added value, from a capitalist perspective, lies outside. There are a great many companies that have some sort of product, that might be meaningful and useful (think Silicon Valley companies) that nevertheless derive most of their value from advertisements, marketing, and the ability to leverage future sales to acquire venture capital. That’s one reason you have so many tech millionaires for companies that aren’t even making a profit.
My brother works in a factory where he literally has to put cherries on top of icecream, which apparently can’t be automated. I would think this is a corruption of work, he’s wasting his life in order to modify an already unhealthy product to be more easily brandable and marketable, but he is not adding any actual value to the icecream from a more fundamental point of view. But that’s not what capitalism cares about. My second brother is an English teacher, who mostly teaches in trade schools to students that need to know English for purposes of international communication or the ability to use English language manuals. In some ways he too is part of cognitive capitalism, since widespread knowledge of English serves as a sort of lubricant for international movement of knowledge.
I think once you look for it, you’ll find it is everywhere. Yeah man, you really hit the nail on its head here. The question is, what do you think about it? Do you see it as wrong? Do you see it as wrong, while being an inevitable consequence of capitalism and do you see it as wrong enough so that it's worth rethinking whether capitalism is the best choice? I still, influenced by first-hand experience of centrally-run society, want to believe that there is a way to stop going in this way while leaving a significant amount of liberties in the hands of individuals, but I am not really sure that it's not just wishful thinking. Because what you describe here shows the most important flaw of capitalism, or any societal organization which is overwhelmingly based on the wishes of individuals: it has the ability to become insanely inefficient once resources aren't sufficiently limited. I won’t give an answer, but I will recommend to you this article (haven’t read the book though), which discusses central planning in the modern age. The concept is that Amazon and Walmart are basically centrally planned economies already and they function on an impressive scale.
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On May 16 2019 08:20 Meta wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2019 08:04 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 15 2019 07:29 Meta wrote: My top picks are: Bernie Warren Yang Gabbard
The rest are not inspiring, in my view. Bernie Warren Yang I agree, those are my preferences as well, in that order, and minus Gabbard. * I wish Yang got more attention, universal basic income is a really interesting idea, and an eventual bridge we will all need to cross. Gabbard has recently announced being open to a UBI plan, just throwing that out there. Plus I completely agree with her foreign policy. Ever dollar spent on bombs could be spent on us instead.
Open to, and pushing for, are two different things.
I just can't see (at all) why even push for someone like Gabbard when you have a Sanders or Warren. Both have much broader support and have been speaking the same message foreverrrrrrrrrrr. They are trustworthy.
My recollection of Gabbard is that she has flip flopped more than a couple times, but the biggest one is in relationship to LGBTQ rights. Good for her for shifting support, but they fact that she had to make that shift at all really hurt in viability in my eyes. On many of her stances, I'm in agreement. I think she's a great person, but there are better candidates out there.
Bernie has been saying the same thing for 30 + years, idk how much more ahead of his time someone can be.
Plus, what Bernie has accomplished as far as showing the entire world, that campaigns can actually be run solely off small money donations, shows that he won't be bought. I also think he has identified the root problem correctly, money in politics appears to prevent any meaningful change from occurring in our political system. Therefore, making it impossible to enact change that would address all of our other problems.
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On May 16 2019 08:58 explosivekangaroo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2019 01:40 semantics wrote:On May 15 2019 23:35 explosivekangaroo wrote:You should put in Yang in the place of one of the candidates with 0% polling: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/democratic_nomination_polls/Frankly I don't see any of the politician really solving the main issue coming in the next decade: the loss of jobs due to automation. We have to rethink the idea of "jobs" as the means to feed ourselves. While Yang is attempting to address this, UBI of $1000 funded mostly by VAT doesn't seem to be a convincing solution. The idea that Yang is pitching is that it provides a floor and a means for people to seek jobs, but pilot basic income programs doesn't show any signs that it incentivizes work. That's a non issue, imo. Jobs go away due to automation just shifts what can be done. Automation in the auto industry didn't kill off so many jobs and no new opportunities for other things to fill it. Service industry grows as we automate more. As long as produtivity and GDP increases jobs will be made. Outside of purely financial jobs that make money off of money, value added to production and the exchange of good and services will lead to jobs. Just the the types of jobs change. You dont sell shit if people dont have jobs and money, you cant automate all jobs into oblivion because there would be no markets to make stuff you'd want to automate to begin with because no one would buy it. Demand exists jobs excists I think the issue is wealth concentration is too extreme. Inequality can be just fine but too much will depress growth as goods and services cant drain the wealth even if they wanted to, too much wealth just sitting doing nothing for the economy. From a practical perspective I don't see that jobs are always going to be made. The type of jobs that can be automated is the vast majority of repetitive labor from fast food workers to law clerks and radiologists. This does not increase the demand, and thus job openings, in the remaining fields such as technology/education/management/social services/creative. You still sell stuff, just more to the rich than the poor and, increasingly, the middle class. And while you can argue that in order to have freedom and meritocracy, 'survival of the fittest' is necessary, the problem is that this is a democracy. If the unemployment rate rose to 25% it's not hard to see that people will vote for a different economic system such as socialism, and I don't think socialism works.
If there aren't jobs to be worked, and therefore no money to be earned, the only system a population could vote for is socialism... I think we are naturally headed there.
It was predicted in Star Trek if I remember correctly
Another aspect that is left out of this automation discussion is AI (as evidenced by SC2 deep mind demonstrations).
Even extremely primitive AI is able to do jobs better than humans, and when AI evolves to super intelligent AI systems will be exponentially more effect than humans could ever hope to be. At that point it won't even be a question should people or AI do a job, it will be only AI (maybe with some small exceptions).
Humans won't have an opportunity to earn income, or at least a vast majority of the population won't have a chance.
Then what to do?
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On May 16 2019 09:30 JimmiC wrote: I think the work force will just transition to entertainment/service and arts related jobs. Or hell maybe even space travel or whatever, it is hard to know what will be available I'm sure pre 1970 or even 1990 nobody thought programmer and so so would be a viable job.
I think UBI is cool and would be a great addition but I don't think it fixes all or even most of the social problems, many of which are bad choices, often because of bad situation, bad parenting, whatever. For example if someone has a drug addiction or to be less dramatic shopping issue a check every month really isn't going to change much for them and almost nothing for their children.
I do think it would raise the floor of society which is a very good thing, and now we also need to lower the ceiling. It would be a pretty cool world where people could choose to be a struggling artist or musician or whatever and struggling meant they could comfortably raise a family of four with their kids having all the options of post secondary or whatever it was that they wanted.
It would also super inject the economy, because the vast majority of that money (regardless of whether it is spent intelligently) would be spent in society, increasing circulation of money, and benefitting the economy.
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On May 16 2019 08:47 explosivekangaroo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2019 00:30 opisska wrote:On May 15 2019 23:48 JimmiC wrote: The other big portion is what do the people do if they are not working. If you include drive time and so on that is 60 hoursish a week. There is a lot of reasons why people don't retire and one is not knowing what to do with their time. It is not a bad thing a bunch of awesome things could possibly accomplished but it is a monumental shift in society. But that is honestly nobody's business. I know you aren't exactly openly suggesting it, but even the fact how your posts mildly implies that we should somehow "keep people entertainted" by making them work is disgusting to me. I do not want to work and I do know extremely well what to do with my time - I already manage to spend far less time working than most people. My blood pressure immediately raises when someone even remotely suggest that we should waste time of people that to not want to work by creating useless work for them just because some other people aren't mentally prepared for a world without the need for work. And this is not some kind of sci-fi, this is what is happening right here right now - there are already tons of people whose work is completely disposable in the grand scheme of things and only exists because the supply of workforce is stupidly large. So many people have jobs that consist solely of competing with other people or negating the effects of other people's jobs. Do you really think that all the paper pushers and everyone who spends their whole days in an office are desperately needed for the creation of goods? This isn't even my idea, the concept of "bullshit jobs" has gotten a lot of press recently, sadly mostly by non-mainstream voices, but a short google search shows you how many people are painfully aware of this. Human time is the most precious thing there exists, yet it is the thing that we waste the most nonchalantly. We should not be creating jobs, but saving people from having to work. The problem is that we don't seem to be a point yet where automation is enough to make most human labor unnecessary. And even if we are there, that would mean redistribution of wealth, which is a toxic concept to most people.
There is already a "redistribution of wealth" it's just perpetuated by the people that already control the vast majority of the wealth. Income inequality and a redistribution of wealth has been a decades long tread that continues to shift ownership of money from being spread out amongst the population, to a small minority of extremely wealthy people.
During the 50's-80's the trend was much different, incomes were closer for all, and we actually had a middle class. Wealth has been redistributed from the middle class to the extremely rich (and we are now approaching pre-depression age levels).
https://inequality.org/facts/income-inequality/
https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/a-guide-to-statistics-on-historical-trends-in-income-inequality
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On May 17 2019 05:02 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2019 09:30 JimmiC wrote: I think the work force will just transition to entertainment/service and arts related jobs. Or hell maybe even space travel or whatever, it is hard to know what will be available I'm sure pre 1970 or even 1990 nobody thought programmer and so so would be a viable job.
I think UBI is cool and would be a great addition but I don't think it fixes all or even most of the social problems, many of which are bad choices, often because of bad situation, bad parenting, whatever. For example if someone has a drug addiction or to be less dramatic shopping issue a check every month really isn't going to change much for them and almost nothing for their children.
I do think it would raise the floor of society which is a very good thing, and now we also need to lower the ceiling. It would be a pretty cool world where people could choose to be a struggling artist or musician or whatever and struggling meant they could comfortably raise a family of four with their kids having all the options of post secondary or whatever it was that they wanted. It would also super inject the economy, because the vast majority of that money (regardless of whether it is spent intelligently) would be spent in society, increasing circulation of money, and benefitting the economy.
IMO the best way to get a bunch of money into the economy is stop prohibition of things. It is coming, gambling is getting legalized, pot. Other things will too. Prohibiting has not made it go away just made it untaxable and unsafe.
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On May 17 2019 05:35 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2019 05:02 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 16 2019 09:30 JimmiC wrote: I think the work force will just transition to entertainment/service and arts related jobs. Or hell maybe even space travel or whatever, it is hard to know what will be available I'm sure pre 1970 or even 1990 nobody thought programmer and so so would be a viable job.
I think UBI is cool and would be a great addition but I don't think it fixes all or even most of the social problems, many of which are bad choices, often because of bad situation, bad parenting, whatever. For example if someone has a drug addiction or to be less dramatic shopping issue a check every month really isn't going to change much for them and almost nothing for their children.
I do think it would raise the floor of society which is a very good thing, and now we also need to lower the ceiling. It would be a pretty cool world where people could choose to be a struggling artist or musician or whatever and struggling meant they could comfortably raise a family of four with their kids having all the options of post secondary or whatever it was that they wanted. It would also super inject the economy, because the vast majority of that money (regardless of whether it is spent intelligently) would be spent in society, increasing circulation of money, and benefitting the economy. IMO the best way to get a bunch of money into the economy is stop prohibition of things. It is coming, gambling is getting legalized, pot. Other things will too. Prohibiting has not made it go away just made it untaxable and unsafe.
There are tonnes of ways, but I doubt legalisation is the most effective. The most common is probably low interrest rates to stop people from hoarding money in bank accounts. Investments, public or private work very well too, even things like gearing up for war.
As for the top 1%, does anyone have a functioning way of denying them from getting richer? Higher income taxes rather strike the upper middle-class, and remove incentives for highly specialized in-demand professionals to work. The top 1% does not earn their wealth through salaries! Maybe asset taxes, but through complicated ownership structres and accountant magic the top 1% is very elusive there too...
The most effective is probably making it hard for super-companies to buy up competition and grow, but should you deny a businessowner their right to get a fantastic price for what they worked hard to build up?
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On May 17 2019 04:45 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On May 16 2019 08:20 Meta wrote:On May 15 2019 08:04 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 15 2019 07:29 Meta wrote: My top picks are: Bernie Warren Yang Gabbard
The rest are not inspiring, in my view. Bernie Warren Yang I agree, those are my preferences as well, in that order, and minus Gabbard. * I wish Yang got more attention, universal basic income is a really interesting idea, and an eventual bridge we will all need to cross. Gabbard has recently announced being open to a UBI plan, just throwing that out there. Plus I completely agree with her foreign policy. Ever dollar spent on bombs could be spent on us instead. Open to, and pushing for, are two different things. I just can't see (at all) why even push for someone like Gabbard when you have a Sanders or Warren. Both have much broader support and have been speaking the same message foreverrrrrrrrrrr. T hey are trustworthy. My recollection of Gabbard is that she has flip flopped more than a couple times, but the biggest one is in relationship to LGBTQ rights. Good for her for shifting support, but they fact that she had to make that shift at all really hurt in viability in my eyes. On many of her stances, I'm in agreement. I think she's a great person, but there are better candidates out there.
It's just not a good look for a candidate running against Trump to have been previously considered for Trump's cabinet. It's also problematic that she has praised Putin and called out Obama for their roles in the Syrian war. It seems her only real base lies in the far right.
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On May 17 2019 07:13 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2019 05:35 JimmiC wrote:On May 17 2019 05:02 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 16 2019 09:30 JimmiC wrote: I think the work force will just transition to entertainment/service and arts related jobs. Or hell maybe even space travel or whatever, it is hard to know what will be available I'm sure pre 1970 or even 1990 nobody thought programmer and so so would be a viable job.
I think UBI is cool and would be a great addition but I don't think it fixes all or even most of the social problems, many of which are bad choices, often because of bad situation, bad parenting, whatever. For example if someone has a drug addiction or to be less dramatic shopping issue a check every month really isn't going to change much for them and almost nothing for their children.
I do think it would raise the floor of society which is a very good thing, and now we also need to lower the ceiling. It would be a pretty cool world where people could choose to be a struggling artist or musician or whatever and struggling meant they could comfortably raise a family of four with their kids having all the options of post secondary or whatever it was that they wanted. It would also super inject the economy, because the vast majority of that money (regardless of whether it is spent intelligently) would be spent in society, increasing circulation of money, and benefitting the economy. IMO the best way to get a bunch of money into the economy is stop prohibition of things. It is coming, gambling is getting legalized, pot. Other things will too. Prohibiting has not made it go away just made it untaxable and unsafe. There are tonnes of ways, but I doubt legalisation is the most effective. The most common is probably low interrest rates to stop people from hoarding money in bank accounts. Investments, public or private work very well too, even things like gearing up for war. As for the top 1%, does anyone have a functioning way of denying them from getting richer? Higher income taxes rather strike the upper middle-class, and remove incentives for highly specialized in-demand professionals to work. The top 1% does not earn their wealth through salaries! Maybe asset taxes, but through complicated ownership structres and accountant magic the top 1% is very elusive there too... The most effective is probably making it hard for super-companies to buy up competition and grow, but should you deny a businessowner their right to get a fantastic price for what they worked hard to build up?
You are right best was not the right word, but one of the ways.
I think super high estate taxes would work well. It would incentivize spending over hoarding till death. I think you would also need to find ways to keep people from moving it out of country.
Also some sort of tax on these large stock options ceos and so on are paid in.
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No mention of NY mayor DeBlasio entering the race? Says a lot.
Anyway the main main problem with UBI is without a strong immigration policy and a good border wall the illegal immigration problem gets 10x worse as poor Mexican go for the $1000 month bonanza, sending half back home.
Any word on the Dems UBI proponents immigration policies? If they’re weak don’t even bother the scheme will collapse on itself.
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I really wish Gravel had a chance to win; he (the teenagers that run his twitter actually lol) offers up so many rare instances of honesty and conciseness from a presidential candidate.
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On May 17 2019 07:13 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2019 05:35 JimmiC wrote:On May 17 2019 05:02 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 16 2019 09:30 JimmiC wrote: I think the work force will just transition to entertainment/service and arts related jobs. Or hell maybe even space travel or whatever, it is hard to know what will be available I'm sure pre 1970 or even 1990 nobody thought programmer and so so would be a viable job.
I think UBI is cool and would be a great addition but I don't think it fixes all or even most of the social problems, many of which are bad choices, often because of bad situation, bad parenting, whatever. For example if someone has a drug addiction or to be less dramatic shopping issue a check every month really isn't going to change much for them and almost nothing for their children.
I do think it would raise the floor of society which is a very good thing, and now we also need to lower the ceiling. It would be a pretty cool world where people could choose to be a struggling artist or musician or whatever and struggling meant they could comfortably raise a family of four with their kids having all the options of post secondary or whatever it was that they wanted. It would also super inject the economy, because the vast majority of that money (regardless of whether it is spent intelligently) would be spent in society, increasing circulation of money, and benefitting the economy. IMO the best way to get a bunch of money into the economy is stop prohibition of things. It is coming, gambling is getting legalized, pot. Other things will too. Prohibiting has not made it go away just made it untaxable and unsafe. There are tonnes of ways, but I doubt legalisation is the most effective. The most common is probably low interrest rates to stop people from hoarding money in bank accounts. Investments, public or private work very well too, even things like gearing up for war. As for the top 1%, does anyone have a functioning way of denying them from getting richer? Higher income taxes rather strike the upper middle-class, and remove incentives for highly specialized in-demand professionals to work. The top 1% does not earn their wealth through salaries! Maybe asset taxes, but through complicated ownership structres and accountant magic the top 1% is very elusive there too... The most effective is probably making it hard for super-companies to buy up competition and grow, but should you deny a businessowner their right to get a fantastic price for what they worked hard to build up?
I believe... The government has the power to break up monopolies (big corporations) and turn them into smaller separate entities (I'm not exactly sure how it works).
That is the only check. And the current administration is doing the exact opposite of that by bolstering corporate power.
The crazy thing is that so many people demonize the government, when a large reason the government exists is to keep the power of wealthy and corporations in check. The government is literally the only check between the wealtyh gaining unlimited power... yet people seem to see the government as the devil.
Here is the difference between government and corporations:
Corporations: only care about making money, and their ability to make money is only limited by how much they are willing to bend/break their moral compass and abuse power. They also have a power motive.
Government: doesn't have a profit motive. for example the government supplies health care for the health of the population, not making government employees rich. There may be a power motive in government (which is no different than corporations), but in a representative government people also have other motives, such as the well being of constituents mixed in with other people's desire for power. There are also caps to what government employees can earn in the highest office, therefore you can't become rich being president unless you abuse your office and power (like the current administration).
There is something of balance in our government, yet when money is introduced through lobbying... the system becomes so obviously corrupted.
The moral of the story is that money corrupts most systems, so we shouldn't be making profit a motive in matters of well being, such as health care.
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On May 17 2019 15:46 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: No mention of NY mayor DeBlasio entering the race? Says a lot.
Anyway the main main problem with UBI is without a strong immigration policy and a good border wall the illegal immigration problem gets 10x worse as poor Mexican go for the $1000 month bonanza, sending half back home.
Any word on the Dems UBI proponents immigration policies? If they’re weak don’t even bother the scheme will collapse on itself.
I personally couldn't care at all about Deblasio, we already inundated with good candidates, there are something like 20? don't need another mediocre one.
As far as UBI goes, it's a simple solution. Require your social security number to collect benefits, end of story. Don't need to do anything about immigration (which has NEVER been a problem until someone in office recently pretended it was). I suppose if you are a racist, it was a problem, but economically, never.
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On May 17 2019 08:40 ZeaL. wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2019 04:45 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 16 2019 08:20 Meta wrote:On May 15 2019 08:04 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 15 2019 07:29 Meta wrote: My top picks are: Bernie Warren Yang Gabbard
The rest are not inspiring, in my view. Bernie Warren Yang I agree, those are my preferences as well, in that order, and minus Gabbard. * I wish Yang got more attention, universal basic income is a really interesting idea, and an eventual bridge we will all need to cross. Gabbard has recently announced being open to a UBI plan, just throwing that out there. Plus I completely agree with her foreign policy. Ever dollar spent on bombs could be spent on us instead. Open to, and pushing for, are two different things. I just can't see (at all) why even push for someone like Gabbard when you have a Sanders or Warren. Both have much broader support and have been speaking the same message foreverrrrrrrrrrr. T hey are trustworthy. My recollection of Gabbard is that she has flip flopped more than a couple times, but the biggest one is in relationship to LGBTQ rights. Good for her for shifting support, but they fact that she had to make that shift at all really hurt in viability in my eyes. On many of her stances, I'm in agreement. I think she's a great person, but there are better candidates out there. It's just not a good look for a candidate running against Trump to have been previously considered for Trump's cabinet. It's also problematic that she has praised Putin and called out Obama for their roles in the Syrian war. It seems her only real base lies in the far right.
I think maybe you aren't giving her enough credit. She has made plenty of good decisions and sided with Bernie and progressives on a lot, but she is also a very flawed candidate (has a lot of weak points), or at least there are much better candidates.
Warren I would choose over her without a millisecond of thought.
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On May 18 2019 04:37 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2019 07:13 Slydie wrote:On May 17 2019 05:35 JimmiC wrote:On May 17 2019 05:02 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 16 2019 09:30 JimmiC wrote: I think the work force will just transition to entertainment/service and arts related jobs. Or hell maybe even space travel or whatever, it is hard to know what will be available I'm sure pre 1970 or even 1990 nobody thought programmer and so so would be a viable job.
I think UBI is cool and would be a great addition but I don't think it fixes all or even most of the social problems, many of which are bad choices, often because of bad situation, bad parenting, whatever. For example if someone has a drug addiction or to be less dramatic shopping issue a check every month really isn't going to change much for them and almost nothing for their children.
I do think it would raise the floor of society which is a very good thing, and now we also need to lower the ceiling. It would be a pretty cool world where people could choose to be a struggling artist or musician or whatever and struggling meant they could comfortably raise a family of four with their kids having all the options of post secondary or whatever it was that they wanted. It would also super inject the economy, because the vast majority of that money (regardless of whether it is spent intelligently) would be spent in society, increasing circulation of money, and benefitting the economy. IMO the best way to get a bunch of money into the economy is stop prohibition of things. It is coming, gambling is getting legalized, pot. Other things will too. Prohibiting has not made it go away just made it untaxable and unsafe. There are tonnes of ways, but I doubt legalisation is the most effective. The most common is probably low interrest rates to stop people from hoarding money in bank accounts. Investments, public or private work very well too, even things like gearing up for war. As for the top 1%, does anyone have a functioning way of denying them from getting richer? Higher income taxes rather strike the upper middle-class, and remove incentives for highly specialized in-demand professionals to work. The top 1% does not earn their wealth through salaries! Maybe asset taxes, but through complicated ownership structres and accountant magic the top 1% is very elusive there too... The most effective is probably making it hard for super-companies to buy up competition and grow, but should you deny a businessowner their right to get a fantastic price for what they worked hard to build up? I believe... The government has the power to break up monopolies (big corporations) and turn them into smaller separate entities (I'm not exactly sure how it works). That is the only check. And the current administration is doing the exact opposite of that by bolstering corporate power. The crazy thing is that so many people demonize the government, when a large reason the government exists is to keep the power of wealthy and corporations in check. The government is literally the only check between the wealtyh gaining unlimited power... yet people seem to see the government as the devil. Here is the difference between government and corporations: Corporations: only care about making money, and their ability to make money is only limited by how much they are willing to bend/break their moral compass and abuse power. They also have a power motive. Government: doesn't have a profit motive. for example the government supplies health care for the health of the population, not making government employees rich. There may be a power motive in government (which is no different than corporations), but in a representative government people also have other motives, such as the well being of constituents mixed in with other people's desire for power. There are also caps to what government employees can earn in the highest office, therefore you can't become rich being president unless you abuse your office and power (like the current administration). There is something of balance in our government, yet when money is introduced through lobbying... the system becomes so obviously corrupted. The moral of the story is that money corrupts most systems, so we shouldn't be making profit a motive in matters of well being, such as health care.
It belongs to the picture that the government also has the right to collect taxes, use force and write laws, something coorporations can only do indirectly and rarely.
The main flaw of western democracies is that remainig in power and making your political opponents look bad are often the main motivations for politicians rather than the wellbeing of the citizens and intellegent longterm planning. That being said, I believe there are no better solutions.
How much the government should be involved in will be debated forever and is the main left-right point of conflict. Communism, where the governemt regulates everything, has been given up because there will be rich elites anyway, it is reacts too slowly to changing public needs and money for yourself is such a powerful motivator.
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On May 18 2019 19:46 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2019 04:37 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 17 2019 07:13 Slydie wrote:On May 17 2019 05:35 JimmiC wrote:On May 17 2019 05:02 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 16 2019 09:30 JimmiC wrote: I think the work force will just transition to entertainment/service and arts related jobs. Or hell maybe even space travel or whatever, it is hard to know what will be available I'm sure pre 1970 or even 1990 nobody thought programmer and so so would be a viable job.
I think UBI is cool and would be a great addition but I don't think it fixes all or even most of the social problems, many of which are bad choices, often because of bad situation, bad parenting, whatever. For example if someone has a drug addiction or to be less dramatic shopping issue a check every month really isn't going to change much for them and almost nothing for their children.
I do think it would raise the floor of society which is a very good thing, and now we also need to lower the ceiling. It would be a pretty cool world where people could choose to be a struggling artist or musician or whatever and struggling meant they could comfortably raise a family of four with their kids having all the options of post secondary or whatever it was that they wanted. It would also super inject the economy, because the vast majority of that money (regardless of whether it is spent intelligently) would be spent in society, increasing circulation of money, and benefitting the economy. IMO the best way to get a bunch of money into the economy is stop prohibition of things. It is coming, gambling is getting legalized, pot. Other things will too. Prohibiting has not made it go away just made it untaxable and unsafe. There are tonnes of ways, but I doubt legalisation is the most effective. The most common is probably low interrest rates to stop people from hoarding money in bank accounts. Investments, public or private work very well too, even things like gearing up for war. As for the top 1%, does anyone have a functioning way of denying them from getting richer? Higher income taxes rather strike the upper middle-class, and remove incentives for highly specialized in-demand professionals to work. The top 1% does not earn their wealth through salaries! Maybe asset taxes, but through complicated ownership structres and accountant magic the top 1% is very elusive there too... The most effective is probably making it hard for super-companies to buy up competition and grow, but should you deny a businessowner their right to get a fantastic price for what they worked hard to build up? I believe... The government has the power to break up monopolies (big corporations) and turn them into smaller separate entities (I'm not exactly sure how it works). That is the only check. And the current administration is doing the exact opposite of that by bolstering corporate power. The crazy thing is that so many people demonize the government, when a large reason the government exists is to keep the power of wealthy and corporations in check. The government is literally the only check between the wealtyh gaining unlimited power... yet people seem to see the government as the devil. Here is the difference between government and corporations: Corporations: only care about making money, and their ability to make money is only limited by how much they are willing to bend/break their moral compass and abuse power. They also have a power motive. Government: doesn't have a profit motive. for example the government supplies health care for the health of the population, not making government employees rich. There may be a power motive in government (which is no different than corporations), but in a representative government people also have other motives, such as the well being of constituents mixed in with other people's desire for power. There are also caps to what government employees can earn in the highest office, therefore you can't become rich being president unless you abuse your office and power (like the current administration). There is something of balance in our government, yet when money is introduced through lobbying... the system becomes so obviously corrupted. The moral of the story is that money corrupts most systems, so we shouldn't be making profit a motive in matters of well being, such as health care. It belongs to the picture that the government also has the right to collect taxes, use force and write laws, something coorporations can only do indirectly and rarely.
I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, but I don't agree with your assessment of corporations.
Even small companies with menial amounts of money can pay lobbyists to cause the text of new law to be written in a financially advantageous way to that company. I know in small companies for very small amounts of money text of new law is adjusted for profit, even if that rewrite has nothing to do with public well being.
That's a po-dunk, drop in the bucket, company rewriting law. Imagine what pfizer does.
Look what corporations did with the Dakota access pipeline. I would make the argument they used force and even broke the law in regard to native land, hired mercenaries who harmed people (along with police), and they did so out in the open. Who do you think is lobbying the laws to make protesting pipelines punishable by decades in jail?
Maybe I'm missing your point, but when you say, "something corporations can only do indirectly and rarely." I would strongly disagree. *Companies large and small do these things all the time.
Politicians care about getting reelected, and for that believe more than anything they need money. Corporations provide that money for reelection to politicians for favor. Which is why many of our laws are written for the benefit of some industry.
The government doesn't have "rights" to things like taxes. Taxes are an agreement that we have all collectively made so that we can have things that are run (not for profit) but for the benefit they provide, such as roads that are maintained, or clean water.
Just so I'm clear in my words, government provides a check on corporate power, maybe the only real check that we have as people. I am definitely a believer in the idea of a representative government, muccchhhhh more so than any free market libertarian idea, that money will magically regulate itself.
Our history (current and past) has shown countless examples of corporate greed corrupting most everything it runs through (wells fargo, pfizer, the entire pharmaceutical industry are a couple examples, there are countless more).
If you are in agreement with me and I'm just preaching to the choir, my apologies (I couldn't tell what your exact point was).
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On May 17 2019 05:35 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 17 2019 05:02 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 16 2019 09:30 JimmiC wrote: I think the work force will just transition to entertainment/service and arts related jobs. Or hell maybe even space travel or whatever, it is hard to know what will be available I'm sure pre 1970 or even 1990 nobody thought programmer and so so would be a viable job.
I think UBI is cool and would be a great addition but I don't think it fixes all or even most of the social problems, many of which are bad choices, often because of bad situation, bad parenting, whatever. For example if someone has a drug addiction or to be less dramatic shopping issue a check every month really isn't going to change much for them and almost nothing for their children.
I do think it would raise the floor of society which is a very good thing, and now we also need to lower the ceiling. It would be a pretty cool world where people could choose to be a struggling artist or musician or whatever and struggling meant they could comfortably raise a family of four with their kids having all the options of post secondary or whatever it was that they wanted. It would also super inject the economy, because the vast majority of that money (regardless of whether it is spent intelligently) would be spent in society, increasing circulation of money, and benefitting the economy. IMO the best way to get a bunch of money into the economy is stop prohibition of things. It is coming, gambling is getting legalized, pot. Other things will too. Prohibiting has not made it go away just made it untaxable and unsafe.
I completely agree that guns should be freely available without prohibition and that people should not be going to jail for illegally owning firearms.
And if you're going to argue that guns are already available in America and regulated, just like how drugs should be available and regulated, then let's say guns should be available in other countries as well, such as Norway and New Zealand, both countries that heavily restrict their availability to the point of almost impossibility to obtain. And if you say sure heavy restriction is the answer, then you should also believe that marijuana should be heavily restricted to the point of unobtanium.
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On May 19 2019 11:16 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On May 18 2019 19:46 Slydie wrote:On May 18 2019 04:37 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 17 2019 07:13 Slydie wrote:On May 17 2019 05:35 JimmiC wrote:On May 17 2019 05:02 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 16 2019 09:30 JimmiC wrote: I think the work force will just transition to entertainment/service and arts related jobs. Or hell maybe even space travel or whatever, it is hard to know what will be available I'm sure pre 1970 or even 1990 nobody thought programmer and so so would be a viable job.
I think UBI is cool and would be a great addition but I don't think it fixes all or even most of the social problems, many of which are bad choices, often because of bad situation, bad parenting, whatever. For example if someone has a drug addiction or to be less dramatic shopping issue a check every month really isn't going to change much for them and almost nothing for their children.
I do think it would raise the floor of society which is a very good thing, and now we also need to lower the ceiling. It would be a pretty cool world where people could choose to be a struggling artist or musician or whatever and struggling meant they could comfortably raise a family of four with their kids having all the options of post secondary or whatever it was that they wanted. It would also super inject the economy, because the vast majority of that money (regardless of whether it is spent intelligently) would be spent in society, increasing circulation of money, and benefitting the economy. IMO the best way to get a bunch of money into the economy is stop prohibition of things. It is coming, gambling is getting legalized, pot. Other things will too. Prohibiting has not made it go away just made it untaxable and unsafe. There are tonnes of ways, but I doubt legalisation is the most effective. The most common is probably low interrest rates to stop people from hoarding money in bank accounts. Investments, public or private work very well too, even things like gearing up for war. As for the top 1%, does anyone have a functioning way of denying them from getting richer? Higher income taxes rather strike the upper middle-class, and remove incentives for highly specialized in-demand professionals to work. The top 1% does not earn their wealth through salaries! Maybe asset taxes, but through complicated ownership structres and accountant magic the top 1% is very elusive there too... The most effective is probably making it hard for super-companies to buy up competition and grow, but should you deny a businessowner their right to get a fantastic price for what they worked hard to build up? I believe... The government has the power to break up monopolies (big corporations) and turn them into smaller separate entities (I'm not exactly sure how it works). That is the only check. And the current administration is doing the exact opposite of that by bolstering corporate power. The crazy thing is that so many people demonize the government, when a large reason the government exists is to keep the power of wealthy and corporations in check. The government is literally the only check between the wealtyh gaining unlimited power... yet people seem to see the government as the devil. Here is the difference between government and corporations: Corporations: only care about making money, and their ability to make money is only limited by how much they are willing to bend/break their moral compass and abuse power. They also have a power motive. Government: doesn't have a profit motive. for example the government supplies health care for the health of the population, not making government employees rich. There may be a power motive in government (which is no different than corporations), but in a representative government people also have other motives, such as the well being of constituents mixed in with other people's desire for power. There are also caps to what government employees can earn in the highest office, therefore you can't become rich being president unless you abuse your office and power (like the current administration). There is something of balance in our government, yet when money is introduced through lobbying... the system becomes so obviously corrupted. The moral of the story is that money corrupts most systems, so we shouldn't be making profit a motive in matters of well being, such as health care. It belongs to the picture that the government also has the right to collect taxes, use force and write laws, something coorporations can only do indirectly and rarely. I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, but I don't agree with your assessment of corporations. Even small companies with menial amounts of money can pay lobbyists to cause the text of new law to be written in a financially advantageous way to that company. I know in small companies for very small amounts of money text of new law is adjusted for profit, even if that rewrite has nothing to do with public well being. That's a po-dunk, drop in the bucket, company rewriting law. Imagine what pfizer does. Look what corporations did with the Dakota access pipeline. I would make the argument they used force and even broke the law in regard to native land, hired mercenaries who harmed people (along with police), and they did so out in the open. Who do you think is lobbying the laws to make protesting pipelines punishable by decades in jail? Maybe I'm missing your point, but when you say, "something corporations can only do indirectly and rarely." I would strongly disagree. *Companies large and small do these things all the time. Politicians care about getting reelected, and for that believe more than anything they need money. Corporations provide that money for reelection to politicians for favor. Which is why many of our laws are written for the benefit of some industry. The government doesn't have "rights" to things like taxes. Taxes are an agreement that we have all collectively made so that we can have things that are run (not for profit) but for the benefit they provide, such as roads that are maintained, or clean water. Just so I'm clear in my words, government provides a check on corporate power, maybe the only real check that we have as people. I am definitely a believer in the idea of a representative government, muccchhhhh more so than any free market libertarian idea, that money will magically regulate itself. Our history (current and past) has shown countless examples of corporate greed corrupting most everything it runs through (wells fargo, pfizer, the entire pharmaceutical industry are a couple examples, there are countless more). If you are in agreement with me and I'm just preaching to the choir, my apologies (I couldn't tell what your exact point was).
I have no idea WTF you're talking about with respect to corporate greed. Without Pfizer, you would not be able to watch the majority of the porn at the same quality (in terms of girth and sustain) that you consume on your computer. Likewise, a lot of older men (and some younger men) would not be having the quality (in terms of girth and sustain) of sex life that they otherwise enjoy with the help of viagra. So I don't know what you have against the company or their product but I'd like to know what you're doing for the good of mankind.
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Bourgeois if you are going to troll at least be interesting about it mate. There is a big difference between prohibition and regulation. Neither Norway or New Zealand Prohibit guns.
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