When will we have a Basic Minimum Income?

[mspohr]

Teslerati had a news item today about the test drive of the Otto autonomous truck.
It noted that there are two million truck drivers whose jobs are at risk from this. Also related losses at roadside services, motels, etc.
This change will come rapidly and it's hard to attribute these job losses to moral failings of the truck drivers. Scapegoating China or immigrants is craven pandering to the ignorant.
This is a system and society problem. How are we doing to deal with it?

 

[tomas]

a new society where the workers fund the ones who won't work? no thanks

You clearly have no ability to think outside your current paradigm.

 

[nwdiver]

a new society where the workers fund the ones who won't work? no thanks

A far more accurate way to phrase that would be 'a new society where the workers fund the ones for whom there is no work.'

 

[nwdiver]

Evidence mounts that the cliff is much closer than most people realize...

No Overstatement: Structural Unemployment Is the Biggest Economic Threat

 

[B8BB8B]

We will never have a basic minimum of income until we take control of our population.

We are grossly over populated and that fuels the fires or poverty.

 

[roblab]

Seems to me that every population has people who would rather sit around and socialize, or people who are always busy. Some people get a job where they can sit around and socialize a good part of the time. Some retired people are always fixing something or helping someone do something.

When the jobs go away, there will be a class that thinks the state should take care of them. There's an old song: "The world owes me a living". They are the ones who like to sit around and watch someone else work. (My wife and I notice the State Road crews, where 6 guys are standing around propping up their shovels, watching one guy run the backhoe)

And there's the guy who has a little shop in his garage and figures out a new way to make a faucet washer. There's always someone who can see something needed.

But I also tend to agree that there are too many people. Nature tends to remove some of the species that can't find out how to make a living. It never makes the winner share with the loser. The loser dies, or at least does not procreate.

 

[nwdiver]

Seems to me that every population has people who would rather sit around and socialize, or people who are always busy. Some people get a job where they can sit around and socialize a good part of the time. Some retired people are always fixing something or helping someone do something.

When the jobs go away, there will be a class that thinks the state should take care of them. There's an old song: "The world owes me a living". They are the ones who like to sit around and watch someone else work. (My wife and I notice the State Road crews, where 6 guys are standing around propping up their shovels, watching one guy run the backhoe)

And there's the guy who has a little shop in his garage and figures out a new way to make a faucet washer. There's always someone who can see something needed.

But I also tend to agree that there are too many people. Nature tends to remove some of the species that can't find out how to make a living. It never makes the winner share with the loser. The loser dies, or at least does not procreate.

You've pretty much completely missed the point.

Here's a colder way of looking at the problem. Think of the economy as a fluid system. Capital gets pumped up to do work then gets retuned to the 'sump' via wages. Consumers (the pumps) then return the capital to the top to do more work. Our pumps are going to start cavitating very soon due to wages no longer returning sufficient capital to the sump. We need another path or we're going to wreck our pumps.

 

[mspohr]

Seems to me that every population has people who would rather sit around and socialize, or people who are always busy. Some people get a job where they can sit around and socialize a good part of the time. Some retired people are always fixing something or helping someone do something.

When the jobs go away, there will be a class that thinks the state should take care of them. There's an old song: "The world owes me a living". They are the ones who like to sit around and watch someone else work. (My wife and I notice the State Road crews, where 6 guys are standing around propping up their shovels, watching one guy run the backhoe)

And there's the guy who has a little shop in his garage and figures out a new way to make a faucet washer. There's always someone who can see something needed.

But I also tend to agree that there are too many people. Nature tends to remove some of the species that can't find out how to make a living. It never makes the winner share with the loser. The loser dies, or at least does not procreate.

You are right that there will always be people who would rather sit around and live off the hard work of other people. We see this all the time in the Wall Street bankers and corporations. These people exploit monopoly power to extract money from hard working people. Normally, the role of government is to prevent these abuses but in most modern capitalist economies the rich and powerful have captured the government and effectively keep it from addressing these abuses.
It usually takes a revolution (see "French") to change the system.

 

[mspohr]

Since we are coming up on the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the US and most civilized countries on December 10, 1948 it might be good to remind ourselves of its contents.
Particularly, Article 25
Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

It is well worth a read of the entire document:
Universal Declaration of Human Rights | United Nations

 

[Jack6591]

1. roblabActive Member2,022
   #46roblab, Today at 2:03 PM
   NewSeems to me that every population has people who would rather sit around and socialize, or people who are always busy. Some people get a job where they can sit around and socialize a good part of the time. Some retired people are always fixing something or helping someone do something.
   
   When the jobs go away, there will be a class that thinks the state should take care of them. There's an old song: "The world owes me a living". They are the ones who like to sit around and watch someone else work. (My wife and I notice the State Road crews, where 6 guys are standing around propping up their shovels, watching one guy run the backhoe)
   
   And there's the guy who has a little shop in his garage and figures out a new way to make a faucet washer. There's always someone who can see something needed.
   
   
   
   But I also tend to agree that there are too many people. Nature tends to remove some of the species that can't find out how to make a living. It never makes the winner share with the loser. The loser dies, or at least does not procreate.
   
   Bill Gates has famously stated that he prefers to hire the laziest smart people he can find. He says that lazy smart people will always figure out the most efficient way to perform a given task.
   
   I'll take a man that works smart over one that works hard anytime.

 

[Xenoilphobe]

The UN, really? Such a model for ethics: Inner City Press: Investigative Reporting from the UN; InnerCityPro.com Too

https://www.unjiu.org/en/reports-notes/JIU Products/JIU_REP_2016_4_English.pdf

 

[Missile Toad]

I have the right to blood transfusions from healthy young adults, and tissue transplants to sustain my immortality beyond 150 years old. I'm entitled to compensation, since my preferred job, President of the United States is, strangely, unavailable to me.

Article 25.
(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

Its all fun and games, until the lawyers get involved.

 

[kort677]

[/QUOTE]

Since we are coming up on the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the US and most civilized countries on December 10, 1948 it might be good to remind ourselves of its contents.

AFAIK the US senate never ratified this, all treaties must be ratified by the US senate, the US is not bound by UN mandates

 

[Xenoilphobe]

Would love to see the definition of "adequate" from a global perspective.

 

[Krypto Kat]

Society can't sustain a consumer without a producer, and more importantly vice versa. So saying I'm a producer because I have work and the consumer (lazy pig) can go suck it, is very foolish thinking.

Artificial Inteligence (a part of automation) is a very scary reality and is threatening all.

 

[nwdiver]

Society can't sustain a consumer without a producer, and more importantly vice versa. So saying I'm a producer because I have work and the consumer (lazy pig) can go suck it, is very foolish thinking.

Artificial Inteligence (a part of automation) is a very scary reality and is threatening all.

Sooooo.... if there's 1 job for every 10 people.... where do the consumers come from?

 

[Xenoilphobe]

The other ten will be busy fighting Skynet's Synthetic Intelligence Machine Network.

Haven't you watched Terminator?

The Terminator - (Original Trailer)

 

[nwdiver]

The other ten will be busy fighting Skynet's Synthetic Intelligence Machine Network.

Haven't you watched Terminator?

The Terminator - (Original Trailer)

If we go that route there won't be a fight... how many minutes do you think it would take a computer to engineer a virus to wipe us out?

 

[Xenoilphobe]

True, but they might keep us around in a virtuality reality like in the Matrix.

They don't need a virus - just keep pumping the CO2 and we will do the job for them. Right?

 

[bhzmark]

Teslerati had a news item today about the test drive of the Otto autonomous truck.
It noted that there are two million truck drivers whose jobs are at risk from this. Also related losses at roadside services, motels, etc.
This change will come rapidly and it's hard to attribute these job losses to moral failings of the truck drivers. Scapegoating China or immigrants is craven pandering to the ignorant.
This is a system and society problem. How are we doing to deal with it?

This minor blip will be dealt with the same way that blacksmiths and carriage makers and milkmen etc were dealt with.

More broadly when machines do everything for us people won't need jobs... They will just hold out their hands and machines will three d print whatever they want.

Jeremy Rifkin | The Zero Marginal Cost Society