Green New Deal

[mspohr]

??? Happens all the time. It's called a 'recession'. Bad ones are called a 'depression'.

If company XYZ can use technology to cut labor costs 80% while increasing output with a ROI of 3 years the free market would drive them to do that. This reduces the number of consumers (not their problem). Soon demand is far lower than supply because work is coupled to labor and there aren't enough workers to consume the production. What's the free market solution? Only people that own stock get to buy stuff?

At some point people are going to have the face the reality that jobs don't pay enough and there are not enough of them and the solution is to just give people money to spend. Tax the rich and corporations to pay for it. Universal Basic Income. (The money will come back to the corporations when they spend it... and they will because most people are living hand to mouth.)

 

[nwdiver]

??? Happens all the time. It's called a 'recession'. Bad ones are called a 'depression'.

If company XYZ can use technology to cut labor costs 80% while increasing output with a ROI of 3 years the free market would drive them to do that. This reduces the number of consumers (not their problem). Soon demand is far lower than supply because work is coupled to labor and there aren't enough workers to consume the production. What's the free market solution? Only people that own stock get to buy stuff?

Meant work is coupled to income or purchasing power...

Doesn't take a math genius to see the problem. If Manufacturing output is increasing 5% per year while total worker salary is decreasing because of automation....... Do we just idle factories to match the purchasing power of shareholders and the other 48% can EFF off and die? Venezuela went down a similar path of leaving half their population behind.... that half revolted and destroyed everything.

 

[juliusa]

At some point people are going to have the face the reality that jobs don't pay enough and there are not enough of them

If there are not enough jobs, then shouldn't we stop adding workers through immigration?
How about all the people work half the time, instead of half the people working all the time?

the solution is to just give people money to spend

How about lowering their taxes instead? Sort of the same thing - they have money to spend instead of giving it to the government.

 

[juliusa]

total worker salary is decreasing because of automation

4M jobs were eliminated through automation over the past several years, and real wages rose.

 

[juliusa]

And how about we work on this independently of global warming?

Or should Congress boil the ocean with a single bill that addresses global warming, automation, energy transition to renewables, immigration, racism, college education, national defense, gun control, police excess, nuclear proliferation, trade - and not enough jobs for everyone? It is all related.

 

[nwdiver]

And how about we work on this independently of global warming?

Hmmm.... I'm guessing your cognitive dissonance is probably stage 4. That sucks.

So do we just leave the hundreds of thousands of people employed in the extraction of coal, oil and gas out in the cold to the mercy of the market? Do we just return to nature all the towns dependent on coal plants, mines and refineries?

This is the other common denominator between Industry 4.0 and AGW. The problems with both are rejected by some people not on any logical basis but because they can't find a solution they like. That's an absolutely INSANE reason to reject a problem.

We currently need ~2 Consumers to support every job. That ratio is going to rise exponentially over the next 20 years. We need a way to return purchasing power to consumers. Purchasing power and employment is already decoupled for some people. We need to decouple it for everyone else to preserve our consumer base.

A revenue neutral carbon tax can't fix communities gutted by the loss of the extractive industries they rely on. We need a systemic solution to a systemic problem. That's what the GND is.

 

[juliusa]

A revenue neutral carbon tax can't fix communities gutted by the loss of the extractive industries they rely on. We need a systemic solution to a systemic problem. That's what the GND is.

Surely immigration is an integral part of any comprehensive plan about jobs and guaranteed income. Why is that excluded - doesn't poll well??

 

[juliusa]

Do we just idle factories to match the purchasing power of shareholders and the other 48% can EFF off and die?

Economics takes care of it. Increased productivity brings lower costs. Lower costs bring lower prices to the consumer.

Consider someone that is paid piece rate for their job. They double their productivity, they can work half as much and earn the same wage.

 

[nwdiver]

Economics takes care of it. Increased productivity brings lower costs. Lower costs brings lower prices to the consumer.

Consider someone that is paid piece rate for their job. They double their productivity, they can work half as much and earn the same wage.

.............. Stage 5 maybe..... is there such a thing?

No... it means their boss and shareholders make more $$$.

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Surely immigration is an integral part of any comprehensive plan about jobs and guaranteed income. Why is that excluded - doesn't poll well??

........... Do you have the memory of a goldfish????

If an immigrant is performing a job that either would have not been performed or would have been performed by a machine that person is adding a consumer to the economy and reducing unemployment. Immigrants are not the cause of unemployment that's a myth perpetuated by ignorant bigots. It's a ratio of workers to consumers the will cause the problem. Immigration 'helps' the ratio.

 

[juliusa]

You believe when the government provides guaranteed income, guaranteed healthcare, and no requirement to work, for anyone in the country legally or illegally, immigration is not part of the equation?

When each worker does not produce enough value to receive enough pay to live on, and is supplemented by the government, what happens when there are more workers? How does the government fund those extra people? Wouldn't the government be better of not having more workers to support, but instead give tht money to the existing workers?

Importing people to be consumers by giving them government money to spend is absurd.

If you have too much of something, you don't import more.

 

[nwdiver]

You believe when the government provides guaranteed income, guaranteed healthcare, and no requirement to work, for anyone in the country legally or illegally, immigration is not part of the equation?

It's an unrelated topic that is more dictated by how comfortable people are with shifting demographics. Statistically immigrants are going to be less of a burden on those items than native born citizens. Moving forward adding consumers is going to me more critical to keep the economy growing than having productive workers.

If anything immigration standards probably need to be significantly loosened since it's estimated there will be ~200M climate refugees in the next ~30 years and the US bears a significant percentage of the blame. Those people have to go somewhere..... Large parts of the Bahamas should probably not be rebuilt. Those people also need to be resettled somewhere....

 

[juliusa]

It's an unrelated topic that is more dictated by how comfortable people are with shifting demographics. Statistically immigrants are going to be less of a burden on those items than native born citizens. Moving forward adding consumers is going to me more critical to keep the economy growing than having productive workers.

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I thought the entire premise of this is THERE ARE NO JOBS because robots are doing them all. There is high unemployment, and government is paying people a guaranteed income (along with healthcare, food, etc).

So an additional person comes to the country. THEY HAVE NO JOB. If there were work available, there is a huge oversupply of labor available already - all those displaced fossil fuel workers, those replaced by robots, and those replaced by AI.

But that additional person is a consumer, and adds to the economy you say. That is true - they do. By spending money given to them by the government since they have no job. The economy can get a better boost by having the government simply spend that money on their own.

But there are jobs, but only immigrants can do them you say. All I can think of is you are a racist, believing there is some innate skill or mental capability that one group of people has that another does not, or that there are jobs suitable for one group of people that are not suitable due to their race of the class they were born in to.

I have the opposite view - while individuals have differences, as groups they are largely the same with the same level of physical and mental abilities. There are no "classes" of people, where one "class" has to do work that another "class" does not.

If there are no jobs, adding more people does not help the economy, There are plenty of other arguments to be made to have immigration even if there are no jobs, but it is a BURDEN on the economy.

About 1.2M people immigrate legally every year. In your scenario where there is no work to do because of automation, should we increase that to 12M people every year so they can "add to the economy"?

 

[nwdiver]

I thought the entire premise of this is THERE ARE NO JOBS because robots are doing them all. There is high unemployment, and government is paying people a guaranteed income (along with healthcare, food, etc).

So an additional person comes to the country. THEY HAVE NO JOB. If there were work available, there is a huge oversupply of labor available already - all those displaced fossil fuel workers, those replaced by robots, and those replaced by AI.

But that additional person is a consumer, and adds to the economy you say. That is true - they do. By spending money given to them by the government since they have no job. The economy can get a better boost by having the government simply spend that money on their own.

But there are jobs, but only immigrants can do them you say. All I can think of is you are a racist, believing there is some innate skill or mental capability that one group of people has that another does not, or that there are jobs suitable for one group of people that are not suitable due to their race of the class they were born in to.

........... seriously..... get your memory checked......

No, I'm saying that people in this country are mathematically incapable of supporting their quality of life doing jobs immigrants do for what they get paid. If immigrants didn't do them most of these jobs would either not be done or get automated.

 

[juliusa]

This chart is a bunch of nonsense. Start with Medicare. Medicare is HEALTHCARE costs - so natives are sicker on average than immigrants? I think not.

Social Security?? That is simply a system where EVERYONE is treated equally. How is it possible that one class of people gets different benefits than another - simply based on being native or immigrant? Makes absolutely no sense. Lies, damn lies, and statictics.

 

[juliusa]

"Quality of life" argument is thinly veiled racism, where one group of people is "entitled" to something that another group of people is not.

I do not want to be part of a racist class society where some people are "better" than others, and "entitled" to a quality of life because of birthright.

 

[nwdiver]

"Quality of life" argument is thinly veiled racism, where one group of people is "entitled" to something that another group of people is not.

I do not want to be part of a racist class society where some people are "better" than others, and "entitled" to a quality of life because of birthright.

Nothing to do with better. It's math....

If immigrants didn't do them most of these jobs would either not be done or get automated.

Only a matter of time before machines are cheaper than immigrant labor too....

 

[juliusa]

Only a matter of time before machines are cheaper than immigrant labor too....

Why is immigrant labor cheaper?? What happened to guaranteed minimum wage?

If there is a job available for a "native", and they simply don't want to do it, should they forfeit any government assistance (healthcare, guaranteed income, etc)?

This racist class system is not what our country is about. We are better than that. We don't need to have people from other countries come to do work that is "beneath" our population.

Only a matter of time before machines are cheaper than immigrant labor too....

So you are saying we DON'T need immigrants?? Build machines to do the jobs that don't exist instead of importing people to perform the jobs that don't exist?? Which is it - we need immigrants to do jobs, or we don't have jobs to be done?

 

[nwdiver]

Why is immigrant labor cheaper?? What happened to guaranteed minimum wage?

If there is a job available for a "native", and they simply don't want to do it, should they forfeit any government assistance (healthcare, guaranteed income, etc)?

This racist class system is not what our country is about. We are better than that. We don't need to have people from other countries come to do work that is "beneath" our population.

..... it's ~$7.25/hr last I checked... I don't know why immigrant labor is cheaper... go ask them why they work for so little. I decided my time is worth $60/hr... if someone wants to work for <$8/hr more power to them. I'm not going to judge.

 

[nwdiver]

So you are saying we DON'T need immigrants?? Build machines to do the jobs that don't exist instead of importing people to perform the jobs that don't exist?? Which is it - we need immigrants to do jobs, or we don't have jobs to be done?

........

You're missing the point. Most immigrants are performing jobs that would have either gone vacant or been automated. Under those conditions they're adding consumers to the economy.

If Josue wasn't here to mow Johns lawn for $20 he could be more likely to buy a Husqvarna robo-mower for $1500 than pay Eric $50 to mow it... Paying Josue creates a consumer. Buying a robot-mower less so. In a few years when the robot-mowers are $400 even Josues rate will seem high so it's only delaying the inevitable...

As immigrants become settled and more affluent there are even more consumers. It's a ratio. Having more people isn't a problem. Needing more consumers to support fewer jobs is.

 

[juliusa]

I don't know why immigrant labor is cheaper... go ask them why they work for so little. I decided my time is worth $60/hr... if someone wants to work for <$8/hr more power to them. I'm not going to judge.

Exactly!! If there were no immigrants willing to work for $8/hr, they would have to raise wages until they found someone willing to do it - $60/hr in your case. People will do just about anything if you pay them enough - even "entitled" people that think jobs are below them.

So at least we agree that a steady flow of cheap labor is depressing wages.

Vacant or automated is a false choice. Pay more is what happens, the worker has more money to spend and consumes more, GDP grows. It is a wonderful thing.