Facebook Co-Founder Says Technology Will Continue Destroying Jobs

[seanreisk]

No he did not. So-called 'Reagan Era' deficits ramped up to their level in Jimmy's last year. And with Tip O'Neill in the House, they weren't coming down Reagan or Not. .

You better get a book and study. You're right that dippy Tip "W.C. Fields" O'Neil was a major problem. But Jimmy Carter's entire cabinet told him that if he elected Paul Volcker to head the Federal Reserve, he would almost certainly lose the next presidential election. Bert Lance told Carter that Volcker was poison, and that his corrections would cause a tailspin in the economy that would not recover until after the 1980 elections. All of the Democrats wanted to print money to turn down some of the economic misery, and Congress actually chugged a bunch of it through over Carter's veto.

Facing certainty that the move would be harsh, unpopular, but necessary, Carter appointed Volcker. And Reagan kept him until he couldn't stand listening to Volcker harp about Reagan's military deficit spending any longer.

You couldn't get military parts because the money was being spent on handouts.

No, we couldn't get parts because Carter refused to approve extra appropriations that previous presidents had been rubber stamping for the Pentagon since 1965.

Like him or hate him, you better know the truth about someone before you start talking fantasy history. Jimmy Carter's actions were unpopular, but when you take away your kid's maxed out credit card that's pretty unpopular too. But you do the right thing by doing it. Better read up. Jimmy Carter is a great man, and was a good president.

 

[daglesj]

It is called supply and demand.

1. Companies will not manufacture stuff that they can't sell. The will also only manufacture as much as they think they can sell
2. Stores will only stock things that they can sell as a price they can sell it at. If the items cost too much from the distributor/manufacturer for them to be able to sell and make a profit, they simply won't stock it (See 1.)

As for everybody being forced out of jobs due to technology.... well, there is going to have to be people to maintain that technology, design that technology, write the programs for that technology, manufacture that technology, etc.

And if people were not too lazy to learn new things, they can change jobs. If they lose a job somewhere, then get a job somewhere else.

Increased technology will end up creating jobs in other areas.

If you don't limit yourself to one single job and don't whine about it, you can learn to do other things.

Yeah yeah it's just all so simple.

 

[Old_Way]

Ooooh ho ho, you just fucked up. I DO remember, and the older I get, the more I appreciate Jimmy Carter. I'm not a democrat, but Jimmy Carter was the last proper fiscal conservative president this country has ever had. He is the last president to tell the people, "the US is in debt, and we are going to live within our means. Suck it up." I remember, because I was in the military, and during the entire Jimmy Carter presidency we couldn't get parts. About 40% of our equipment was on deadline (that means broken, for you civilians), because we couldn't even get motor oil if we didn't pay for it ourselves. Not only did he tell the Pentagon to buckle down and figure out how to live within their budget, he also forced a reworking of the methods for government contracting and procurement, which were all rewritten to stop the silly shit that was going on in the industrial military complex during Vietnam.

In 1976 America cried for an honest, practical president. And we got one, and his name was Jimmy Carter, and we HATED it. And we've never voted for an honest, practical and fiscally conservative president since.

But don't blame Jimmy Carter, that would be pure fake news.

http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/d/d/Jimmy-Carter

 

[seanreisk]

http://federal-budget.insidegov.com/d/d/Jimmy-Carter

...... I would use the same chart to prove MY point. Those charts say nothing about the events of the time or the actions of the actors present. That chart says nothing about the Vietnam debt, the oil crisis, and the industrial protectionism or Nixon's crazy price-and-wage freeze (the same thing Venezuela has been trying) or Ford's refusal to challenge the US oil companies. Ask anyone with an economics degree - a single-term president's economy is the one he inherited from the previous president.

 

[tetris42]

OMG, don't get me started on trickle-down economics. If I ever see a politician use the term 'trickle-down economics' while actually describing authentic trickle-down economics, I will have a heart attack and die, just so I can watch hell freeze over.

It's funny, we're here talking about how to help the working poor, but what the working poor need is a living wage and protection from catastrophic economic events (i.e., they need fucking health insurance). We'd like someone to solve these problems (as long as it isn't the government, which we blame for high taxes) and we resent people who use government services to get by. But lets flip that idea on its head: The Brookings Institute did a study where they charted a 'small' business owner in a major metropolitan area. The businessman got his start in the 1990s through a sizable inheritance (about two million dollars) from his grandparents. His business is in fast food restaurants, a gas station, and some rental properties. His annual take-home pay after taxes is around 1.5 million. Amazingly, he considers himself a 'self-made man'.

His employees are mostly minimum wage, mostly adult, and he shuffles his employees through his multiple businesses so that they aren't counted as full-time workers. He does this to avoid the benefits (health care) that full-time work requires.

Many of his workers get government benefits. Total monthly government benefits for all his employees comes to about $18,000.00. Every month. That price does not include the government employees who administer those benefits, and it doesn't include the other charities that his employees use. Multiply that by 12 months, and every year it comes to $216,000.00....

We say that the poor are leeching off of us through the government. But by using simple algebra, we can mathematically show that a businessman who takes home a million and change every year but won't pay his employees a real wage is receiving an annual tax-free subsidy from the government to the tune of over $200,000.00.

The easiest way to change the formula is simple. If a poor worker qualifies for government benefits, they receive them. If the employer(s) can afford it, they are required to reimburse the government. Easy.

But this doesn't fit the narrative that poor people are to blame because they wield so much power deciding public policy.

 

[buttons]

You forgot to factor in the $500 month power bill! Doh!

LoL, $500 a month in power is not enough power to cover my mortgage and groceries. Last august I had a power bill over $600 and i was only running 8 video cards... and the AC 24x7

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of people living off of government payouts.

That being said, if technology is really going to potentially make as many as 90% of us unemployed, something is going to have to change. In that scenario free market capitalism just won't work anymore and will collapse on itself.

Even the most stable society is only four square meals away from revolution.

 

[nilepez]

I'd love the government to subsidize my employees rather than pay a meaningful wage. I love these marxist larping CEO's who use the government to flood the labor market and subsidize their labor in the guise of altuism, but when it comes to digging in their own pockets to pay a decent wage, it's "Eff That!"

If this comes to pass, those corporations will be heavily taxed to pay for the minimum income.

 

[refraxion]

The blockchain technology that people here seem to be so against? Yeah, that's going to replace some jobs.

 

[Aireoth]

The blockchain technology that people here seem to be so against? Yeah, that's going to replace some jobs.

And yet no one has been able to succinctly explain why blockchain has actual value. Sure theres lots of buzzwords...

Basically its a super fast accounting ledger?

Also only use people when 100% are for or against, otherwise some or most would apply. There are plenty of crypto positive people here.

 

[nilepez]

No he did not. So-called 'Reagan Era' deficits ramped up to their level in Jimmy's last year. And with Tip O'Neill in the House, they weren't coming down Reagan or Not. You couldn't get military parts because the money was being spent on handouts.

It's Under Nixon, Ford and Carter we started hemorraging money in trade deficits. Letting us have high unemployment while allegedly inflation you would resolve with high interest rates should have low unemployment. Good old Triple Doubles Jimmy. Double digit inflation, double digit unemployment, double digit interest rates.

Tip O'Neill was Speaker from 1/77-1/87. Democrats controlled the House from the 50s through 1994. They controlled the Senate from 1959 until Reagan took office. Carter's and the Democratic House/Senate's last budget had a 79 Billion dollar deficit with a 2.4% deficit/GDP ration.
Reagan's first budget deficit was 128 Billion. Then 208 billion the following year. He did get it back down to roughly 150 billion before he left.

So to recap, Tip O'Neill didn't run huge deficits under Carter.
Reagan/Republican House come in and Deficit goes up 62% with Reagan's first budget and the deficit/gdp ratio went from 2.4% to 3.8% (and to 5.6% the following year and never got down below carter's last year and only once approached the worst debt/gdp % under Carter.)
During Reagan's time in office, the National debt was almost tripled from just under 1 trillion in FY 1981 to 2.86 trillion in FY89

Things weren't perfect in the 70s and I won't rpetend they were, but arguing that the increases were Democrat's ridiculous.

 

[nilepez]

Really makes me wonder if I'll see a Civil War / Revolution in this country in my life time.

I mean think about it. The Govt is OBVIOUSLY corrupt (they don't even try hiding it at this point). Gun/Ammo sells have been at an all time high for a couple years now. The Economy is progressively getting shittier with massive amounts of debt stacking up. I even wonder if a good portion of our military would obey any kinda of orders to attack our own civilians.

On the other hand we're walking into unknown waters. Yea, we can use history as an example, but that only goes so far.

While I can imagine something like that happening, I doubt it will and your claim that economy is getting worse is patently false. We've been in an expanding economy since late 2009. Now if you want to argue that employers don't pass enough to employees, I agree, but that may be changing, because we're essentially at full employment. It all depends on how long until we get to the next recession and whether or not inflation will kick in over the next few years. Time will tell.

As for gun/ammo sales, that's a small part of the population. Less than 40% of households have a gune (a percentage that has been dropping since the 70s). The 3x% that do own guns buy tons them.

 

[refraxion]

And yet no one has been able to succinctly explain why blockchain has actual value. Sure theres lots of buzzwords...

Basically its a super fast accounting ledger?

Also only use people when 100% are for or against, otherwise some or most would apply. There are plenty of crypto positive people here.

Plenty? I'd say the minority. Where as most here are against. I should have used 'most', my bad.

I'm one of the few "crypto positive" here.

 

[JokerCPoC]

LoL, $500 a month in power is not enough power to cover my mortgage and groceries. Last august I had a power bill over $600 and i was only running 8 video cards... and the AC 24x7

Agreed, Me I'd think $1,666.67 a month or $20,000.04 a year as a Basic Income Grant would be better, one wouldn't get rich, but when times are tough, one wouldn't need to apply for UI or if one became Disabled due to an accident, surgery, or time itself, or all 3, one would be secure and not have to get SSDI and/or SSI, and in Retirement this would a better income than some Seniors get.

 

[velusip]

He's a frontrunner warning everyone this ship is too big to turn. Tech giants know they are incapable of scaling back, unable to pivot, and fail to operate economically, ecologically, or within the rules of fair capitalism. When the ship runs out of money, governments might consider the effect on their GDP as a risk to justify subsidy. (Where have we seen this before?) Let an imbalanced thing die so its space can be occupied and its parts consumed by balanced things. Fair capitalism.

Using job-automation (negatively affecting significant workforce) to rationalize government basic income is like 4 chapters from the "Psychological Manipulation 101" textbook rolled into one. It could certainly work if tech profits are clean and efficient enough to justify their yield of corporate taxes, but if not, then we are supporting a recursive economic sink. It's like tech giants are trying to get into the Big Bank game.

TL;DR Tech giants have become massive ecological burdens and are afraid people won't be able to afford to feed it money.

 

[Maxx]

Or how about when we "robotize" everything, every citizen gets a share of the production duty cycle? Something similar to sharing time on a supercomputer. What we have now with the cloud we could have with production; people would labor less but get production value (either as currency or they could produce their own items as an entrepreneur, a la 3D printing but on a potentially larger scale). Marx did not predict robots, of course, but he did foresee production reaching ever higher limits (with his ultimate prediction being people would not have to work at all but could spend their time in politics and creative activities) and this seems to be somewhat realized in recent trends. I'm against the ideas we see with Hawking, Musk, et al. with AI apocalypses and universal basic income (UBI) - rather we should encourage the entrepreneurial mindset and, if anything, keep the means of production in the hands of the people (giving them money seems to be an indirect approach and creates unnecessary dependence). AI is a different matter but should not labor but make our lives easier (the "expert systems" approach). I think these guys all live in a detached world from the average citizen and don't really grasp that their solutions are...archaic? On the one hand they are predicting world-changing events, on the other they are suggesting very basic solutions with no basis in reality. Sure, this could help "bridge the gap," but it's also potentially a dangerous slippery slope. (if my suggestion seems like I'm advocating that every citizen become an equal shareholder in an industrial-governmental construct, that's because I am; we already largely live in a manner compatible with such a shift, while leaning "progressive" towards UBI or similar is likely to stagnate society)

 

[nilepez]

He's a frontrunner warning everyone this ship is too big to turn. Tech giants know they are incapable of scaling back, unable to pivot, and fail to operate economically, ecologically, or within the rules of fair capitalism. When the ship runs out of money, governments might consider the effect on their GDP as a risk to justify subsidy. (Where have we seen this before?) Let an imbalanced thing die so its space can be occupied and its parts consumed by balanced things. Fair capitalism.

Using job-automation (negatively affecting significant workforce) to rationalize government basic income is like 4 chapters from the "Psychological Manipulation 101" textbook rolled into one. It could certainly work if tech profits are clean and efficient enough to justify their yield of corporate taxes, but if not, then we are supporting a recursive economic sink. It's like tech giants are trying to get into the Big Bank game.

TL;DR Tech giants have become massive ecological burdens and are afraid people won't be able to afford to feed it money.

No, they know that there are large segments of society that perform tasks that can be automated. It's not clear whether most of those people will be capable of learning to do jobs that can't be automated. There's a reason why the lower middle class is getting squeezed and part (though not all) of that is related to automation. We have factories here. We produce tons of crap, but we do it with less people.

I imagine some day even many well paid engineering jobs will be able to be performed by computers.

The big unknown is will this automation lead to knew innovation from people or not. I don't know, but we should be prepared, because automation and advanced AI is going to happen and probably in our lifetime. Can a truck driver learn another skill that will pay as well as they're currently paid? My guess is no (if for no other reason than those are upper 5 to 6 figure jobs.

 

[tetris42]

No, they know that there are large segments of society that perform tasks that can be automated. It's not clear whether most of those people will be capable of learning to do jobs that can't be automated. There's a reason why the lower middle class is getting squeezed and part (though not all) of that is related to automation. We have factories here. We produce tons of crap, but we do it with less people.

I imagine some day even many well paid engineering jobs will be able to be performed by computers.

The big unknown is will this automation lead to knew innovation from people or not. I don't know, but we should be prepared, because automation and advanced AI is going to happen and probably in our lifetime. Can a truck driver learn another skill that will pay as well as they're currently paid? My guess is no (if for no other reason than those are upper 5 to 6 figure jobs.

It's not even a matter of whether they can learn new skills or not. If that's all this was, the situation wouldn't be nearly as serious. It's an issue of how many jobs there will be available period. So if you have 3 million truck drivers being displaced and all 3 million retrain into something more employable, but you only have 1 million jobs opening up in other fields, you still have a big problem. Then repeat that in fast food, retail, clerical work, etc.

 

[daglesj]

LoL, $500 a month in power is not enough power to cover my mortgage and groceries. Last august I had a power bill over $600 and i was only running 8 video cards... and the AC 24x7

Wowsers!

I have to say I can cover all my monthly costs (mortgage/gas/electric/telecoms/insurance/pension/ local tax etc.) for around $700 a month. So $500 a month would go to help cover a great deal. I could cut back on some stuff if I had too.

My electric bill would go down if I was no longer working.

However, if it was applied to my other half as well then we could get by on $1000 a month.

 

[daglesj]

Tip O'Neill was Speaker from 1/77-1/87. Democrats controlled the House from the 50s through 1994. They controlled the Senate from 1959 until Reagan took office. Carter's and the Democratic House/Senate's last budget had a 79 Billion dollar deficit with a 2.4% deficit/GDP ration.
Reagan's first budget deficit was 128 Billion. Then 208 billion the following year. He did get it back down to roughly 150 billion before he left.

So to recap, Tip O'Neill didn't run huge deficits under Carter.
Reagan/Republican House come in and Deficit goes up 62% with Reagan's first budget and the deficit/gdp ratio went from 2.4% to 3.8% (and to 5.6% the following year and never got down below carter's last year and only once approached the worst debt/gdp % under Carter.)
During Reagan's time in office, the National debt was almost tripled from just under 1 trillion in FY 1981 to 2.86 trillion in FY89

Things weren't perfect in the 70s and I won't rpetend they were, but arguing that the increases were Democrat's ridiculous.

As Newt Gingrich scarily stated with a perfectly calm face to a reporter when he was informed that official confirmed stats proved what he had just said was total bullshit -

"It's not important what the facts actually are. It's only important in what I believe to be true!"

That's how it works now. Reality just does not come into the equation.

 

[stealthballer123]

right wingers love making slaves and then calling it good for people.

 

[kromc5]

So the governments of the world have no idea on what a budget is but somehow they will be able to fund this?

 

[Blakestr]

So the governments of the world have no idea on what a budget is but somehow they will be able to fund this?

Ironically, the "wealth redistribution" argument might come into play in this but more benign than you might think. I think as the conditions change and jobs disappear more and more, the reality of "Wow, there really AREN'T jobs out there. Wait, there is a two year waiting list for McDonald's robot technician?" will set in. Then I think we start to see some bigtime one percenters, guys like Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, selectively do some government partnerships. (Look at Amazon/'Buffer's healthcare scheme). Capitalism, ironically, hailed as the greed mongering sickness for ages, will be seen as simply the most "human" form - capable of great evil/suffering but also of great progress.

The biggest challenge will be not how do we afford to live this way but how do we maintain our cultural growth? How do we still progress as human beings when we aren't forced by desperation? I don't know about you guys but none of the real "growth" I ever experienced was really by choice...life gets hard and that forces you to adapt...what happens when life becomes easy? How do we avoid becoming complacent and lazy?

(the answer is space colonization but we have a some "impossible" things to solve before that concept becomes mainstream enough to leave science fiction. )

 

[buttons]

Wowsers!

I have to say I can cover all my monthly costs (mortgage/gas/electric/telecoms/insurance/pension/ local tax etc.) for around $700 a month. So $500 a month would go to help cover a great deal. I could cut back on some stuff if I had too.

My electric bill would go down if I was no longer working.

However, if it was applied to my other half as well then we could get by on $1000 a month.

My house payment is $1130 (including insurance and taxes). Spend around $300 a month on gas (40 mile round trip to work and back) I live in michigan, so we have the highest auto insurance in the country... without mining my average electric bill in the winter is probably $90-110 In the summer though, running the AC 24x7 just to maintain 77F in the house against 8 video cards was killer. This summer i am going to put them in my parents polebarn and try to vent outside without letting critters in. This is of course, if video cards ever come back into stock...

 

[TexasTea]

Under his plan, Hughes said, "As long as you're working for your country, your country takes care of you."

That's what the Soviet Union used to say and we all know how well that worked out.

 

[ssnyder28]

Under his plan, Hughes said, "As long as you're working for your country, your country takes care of you."

That's what the Soviet Union used to say and we all know how well that worked out.

Chris Hughes = Communist

CONFIRMED!

 

[Aireoth]

Plenty? I'd say the minority. Where as most here are against. I should have used 'most', my bad.

I'm one of the few "crypto positive" here.

And yet no one is able to really say why Crypto/blockchain has any real value other than a fancy version of a ledger.

 

[refraxion]

I don't need to explain it. I'll let the big companies investing millions into Blockchain show that there is real value.

And while that is happening, I'll happily keep making money while people moan about crypto.

 

[m33pm33p]

It will come down to 5% being emplyed and 95% being forced out of work.

Those 5% will by a large number consist of Truck drivers, to deliver goods from amazon and ebay to you...ehhhh OHH I forgot, how shall those 95% pay anything they order ?? Oooops,Houston, we have a problem !


Tho I order too at amazon, they steal your future and give you no option other than help them destroy what we once had.

The 5% will be truck drivers? LOL. They are going to be one of the first automated out of a job. Self driving trucks are already being tested in real world scenarios. Anyone with a job pertaining solely to driving should already be looking at a new career as automated driving technology is here to stay. It's just going to take a few more years to get the wrinkles ironed out. Hell, amazon was trying to figure out how to get drones to deliver packages.

 

[Todd Walter]

The 5% will be truck drivers? LOL. They are going to be one of the first automated out of a job. Self driving trucks are already being tested in real world scenarios. Anyone with a job pertaining solely to driving should already be looking at a new career as automated driving technology is here to stay. It's just going to take a few more years to get the wrinkles ironed out. Hell, amazon was trying to figure out how to get drones to deliver packages.

The big shift will be when we're done automating blue-collar jobs and start automating white collar jobs more rapidly. AI is already in use in STEM-related fields (CAD/CAM, but with more solvers and fewer engineers), it's used in both the legal profession (no need for paralegals for research) and in Marketing, but in a limited fashion. When it hits HR and Accounting, you'll see another big shift. Hell, accounting is the reason we all have PCs now; computers are what decimated that department (along with the stats people). The mandatory increase in minimum wages pushed by the Ontario government just made automation the best choice for a lot of businesses.

 

[Blakestr]

The big shift will be when we're done automating blue-collar jobs and start automating white collar jobs more rapidly. AI is already in use in STEM-related fields (CAD/CAM, but with more solvers and fewer engineers), it's used in both the legal profession (no need for paralegals for research) and in Marketing, but in a limited fashion. When it hits HR and Accounting, you'll see another big shift. Hell, accounting is the reason we all have PCs now; computers are what decimated that department (along with the stats people). The mandatory increase in minimum wages pushed by the Ontario government just made automation the best choice for a lot of businesses.

THIS - So, years ago, when the tech industry started up, a lot of blue collar jobs became white collar jobs, aka technicians. Now those will be phased out and you will only have specialists left. Did you know that there is machine learning that can read an ct scans at higher success rate than experienced physicians? Yeah, underwater welding is a great gig, until they make a robot for it. And they will. Look at the rate of technological change, how the RATE has increased so quickly... we don't need to be scared but we do need to be paying attention.

 

[JokerCPoC]

Wowsers!

I have to say I can cover all my monthly costs (mortgage/gas/electric/telecoms/insurance/pension/ local tax etc.) for around $700 a month. So $500 a month would go to help cover a great deal. I could cut back on some stuff if I had too.

My electric bill would go down if I was no longer working.

However, if it was applied to my other half as well then we could get by on $1000 a month.

Based on experience, your bill might go up, it all depends on how much you are at home.

 

[daglesj]

Based on experience, your bill might go up, it all depends on how much you are at home.

Well I work from home and only have a $20000 mortgage. So costs are pretty low. I have plenty of savings but here in the UK rates are so low its better to just keep re-mortgaging (its due in 3 years time when I will owe $16800). I can pay it off tomorrow but its cheaper to keep it on mortgage.

Bixzzare but true. I'll keep my shares and savings for now.

 

[nilepez]

It's not even a matter of whether they can learn new skills or not. If that's all this was, the situation wouldn't be nearly as serious. It's an issue of how many jobs there will be available period. So if you have 3 million truck drivers being displaced and all 3 million retrain into something more employable, but you only have 1 million jobs opening up in other fields, you still have a big problem. Then repeat that in fast food, retail, clerical work, etc.

my point was you're not going to turn a truck driver into an Engineer and long haul truck drivers can make upper 5 figures, which is comparable to some engineering jobs. A truck driver probably isn't going to become an engineer, so even if no burger flipping jobs were ever replaced, they're not going to make 50-70 grand flipping burgers.

OTOH, if this is done correctly, then essentially you could have people doing whatever they love and not worry about making a living, because most things are done for you.

 

[nilepez]

As Newt Gingrich scarily stated with a perfectly calm face to a reporter when he was informed that official confirmed stats proved what he had just said was total bullshit -

"It's not important what the facts actually are. It's only important in what I believe to be true!"

That's how it works now. Reality just does not come into the equation.

I never thought I'd hear someone talk about truthiness without a hint of irony or humor.

 

[velusip]

No, they know that there are large segments of society that perform tasks that can be automated. It's not clear whether most of those people will be capable of learning to do jobs that can't be automated. There's a reason why the lower middle class is getting squeezed and part (though not all) of that is related to automation. We have factories here. We produce tons of crap, but we do it with less people.

I imagine some day even many well paid engineering jobs will be able to be performed by computers.

The big unknown is will this automation lead to knew innovation from people or not. I don't know, but we should be prepared, because automation and advanced AI is going to happen and probably in our lifetime. Can a truck driver learn another skill that will pay as well as they're currently paid? My guess is no (if for no other reason than those are upper 5 to 6 figure jobs.

Well, that is a reiteration of the underlying point here. We already know that a supplanted workforce does not transition well, and that's why this 'forerunner' is grooming the tax collection entities for intervention. I'll explain why in a little more depth: When a significant population takes a major financial dive, so do tax yields. That piques the interest of the collection entity (government) who can then be coerced into providing support to simulate stability and maintain transaction rates by injecting fluid cash. We see these subsidies as bailouts, stimulation packages, welfare, basic income, employment insurance, and federal capital investment. Due to the way all transactions are taxed, and the intentionally lengthened production and distribution chains, any federal 'stimulation' is nearly returned in full within a few years (remainder subtracted through resource extraction and growth). With this case in particular, not only are income taxes in trouble due to a very significant population losing employment, but it will in turn reduce the potential profits of the massive tech industry as well. Tech giants thrive on an enormous number of low income consumers. For example, a reasonably high wage earner doesn't necessarily buy more smart phones than a low wage earner. Only raw numbers count here. So if up to 0.2% of the population could lose their jobs to tech, year on year, this ramps up quickly and reduces sales of frivolous tech products. It's in their interest to encourage the feds to throw money at the problem -- and the tech giants will continue to clean house.

 

[viscountalpha]

adapt or die. I'm doing a side job to make extra cash and get out of debt. So instead of spending $60 on videogames, I'm spending it buying junk to resell. I've made more then my fair share of it back. Sometimes I see obscene markup % ( $6 into $200) I double my cash spent often. It does take work and sometimes I have to repair/rework some of the items. That's life.

Can i do it full time? not really. Does it take my crappy job + side hustle and make it a ton better? You becha.

 

[M76]

Destroy is such a strong word. They don't destroy jobs, they make them obsolete. And that should be a good thing.

 

[daglesj]

Destroy is such a strong word. They don't destroy jobs, they make them obsolete. And that should be a good thing.

Until...it's your job!

 

[c3k]

For "the government" to give a stipend to everyone making below a certain amount (50k is what was posited in the OP), would be destructive beyond all belief. Government cannot give something unless they've taken it from someone else. Deficit spending? That means future generations are enslaved. You know, they HAVE to work to pay off that debt. And they never got to vote on it.

Let's say everyone makes 50k. Every burger flipper, every waitress, etc. Now, how much do you think a six-pack of bud would cost? Etc. No surer way to devalue your currency than to dictate a high wage for all workers.

If you have any doubts, look to Venezuela. Or any other communist/socialist experiment in the last 100 years.

This doesn't work.

What does work? Allowing the citizen to offer labor in exchange for pay. If the citizen does not think it is a "living wage", then get an additional job or a different job or better training.

It hurts, but it's the truth.