Robots Aren't Destroying Enough Jobs

Megalith

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In a contrarian piece, one writer argues that robots destroying jobs isn’t what we should be worried about: the actual concern is that they are not destroying enough of them, particularly in so-called “low-productivity” sectors that include health care and hospitality. He seems to suggest that unemployment is being exaggerated, especially in these areas, which happen to be resistant to automation and are “holding back the entire country's standard of living.”

…low productivity sectors such as education, health care, social assistance, leisure and hospitality have added nearly 7 million jobs. Meantime, information and finance, where value added per worker is five to 10 times higher, have cut or barely added jobs. This calls for a change in priorities. Instead of worrying about robots destroying jobs, business leaders need to figure out how to use them more, especially in low-productivity sectors. Someday robots may replace truck drivers, but it's much more urgent to make existing drivers, who are in short supply, more efficient. Clean energy advocates boast about how many people work in solar power when they should be trying to reduce the labor, and thus cost, involved.
 
I'll save you guys the trouble of reading the article, here's the punchline

The alternative is a tightening labor market that forces companies to pay ever higher wages that must be passed on as inflation, which usually ends with recession.

Yep, higher wages are the devil and must be avoided at all costs. After all, higher wages are what caused the grea... ok not that one but sure it was the source of HW Bush's recess... ok but sure W's post 9/11 recess... Ok I don't have numbers to back me up but if you can't trust Fox News Entertainment then who can you trust?
 
Someone needs to explain to him where corporations get their customers (and make their money).

Hint, it's by their customer working to make money so it can be spent on goods and services. If you take out part of that equation, the other side will seek equilibrium (e.g. less workers in the overall workforce = less customers = less profits).

If a B2C company starts making less money, they'll likely cut back on some B2B services. It trickles down.
 
Still low wage jobs are better than no wage jobs China and Mexico are certainly good enough examples of that for the US given how they directly and indirectly impact our economical system in ways. Any job growth is good, but it helps if they aren't all just low wage jobs barely anyone are willing to do in the first place if they can actually help it.
 
Still low wage jobs are better than no wage jobs China and Mexico are certainly good enough examples of that for the US given how they directly and indirectly impact our economical system in ways. Any job growth is good, but it helps if they aren't all just low wage jobs barely anyone are willing to do in the first place if they can actually help it.

I disagree. We can create an unlimited number of jobs which pay $1 per day. I'd suggest we're better off employing a smaller number of people at a livable wage even if it meant those people had to pay extra taxes to help support those without jobs. Ultimately it will mean that working is more or less optional, regardless of whatever the libertarian ninnies have to say on the matter.
 
Ultimately everything should be automated with every citizen designated a portion of the robotic workforce as their representative that pays for their "welfare." Moreover, production should become a lot like the cloud, where it's relatively cheap for the average person to mass produce their own customized designs a la 3D printing. That combination would achieve the Marxist ideal of no labor where all energy can be spent on leisure, politics, and artisanship. Corporations would still compete in the capitalistic manner in order to get the best returns on the automated labor market while government would remain in charge of regulation (albeit less on worker safety and more product liability). Ideally this would be coupled with genetic engineering and lower birth-rates worldwide which would still leave resources and culture as the primary differences; culture would become a commodity, though, reflected in personal designs, while resources would be pegged to a universal "worker" standard in terms of raw production.

The alarmism we see from people like Elon Musk (pushing UBI) and Stephen Hawking (space colonization) are essentially founded on antiquated concepts. Really, they're almost late Victorian-era solutions to modern problems. It's like authors writing about flying cars a century ago. We have great technologies and an evolving paradigm in society today and I think that while they are certainly forward thinkers they are trying to solve it here and now. They focus on the negatives without realizing the potential of the positives. The last thing you want to do is give power to the oligarchy and government (UBI) or place a faint hope on a fringe concept (space colonization). You have to overcome the class system as a whole in a semi-Marxist context whereby everyone is agreed an equal platform while having endless opportunity. Capitalism is inherently compatible with such a system if you leverage the technology properly.
 
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so bring on 75% tax rate?

Oh i'm sure that we could find enough wasteful spending to pull the funds from that it wouldn't be that high. Tax the rich a bit more, maybe stop putting billions into crap such as the F35, maybe stop outfitting police departments with near military level gear, maybe stop spending money prosecuting drug offenses and locking said people up, lots of ways.
 
Oh i'm sure that we could find enough wasteful spending to pull the funds from that it wouldn't be that high. Tax the rich a bit more, maybe stop putting billions into crap such as the F35, maybe stop outfitting police departments with near military level gear, maybe stop spending money prosecuting drug offenses and locking said people up, lots of ways.
No. Yes there is a lot of wasted spending but it is not enough to provided universal health care and income for 330 milions people. Taking more money from rich people isnt the answer. In the end the middle class gets hit the hardest. Do you want to go and pay $10 for a gallon of gas. $30k for a base model car? A million dollars for a 1200sqft house? All it does is make everyone equally poor but the top 1% and the people pulling all the strings. That is the end game. Make everyone too reliant on the government and you have a population that is easy to control.
 
Amateur hour! At the disco!

So apparently this from your first link

Upward of 60 restaurants around the Bay Area have closed since the start of September alone, with many citing difficulties like the cost of finding and keeping good employees, rising rents, new requirements for providing health care and sick leave, and doing it all while competing with the slew of new dining options.

= rising minimum wage

As for your second link, it's so embarrassing for you that you think the Washington Examiner is a real newspaper. It isn't https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Examiner :themoreyouknow:

The "new study by the Harvard Business School" they "report" on is not even a pre-print. It is a working paper, meaning it's incomplete and unfinished and absolutely hasn't made it through peer review. Now, if you search on the authors they seem legit so likely some form of this paper will ultimately be published so I'm not trying to attack them, but the process exists for legit reasons and unpublished research remains unpublished research. Additionally, the author of the article claims some conclusions from the paper which I didn't see (e.g. firms should respond by working their employees harder. If I had to guess that's him spinning the part about favoring more productive employees).

But at the end of the day, so what? The paper claims that worse rated restaurants are impacted more heavily by minimum wage increases. Makes sense to me. That's not an argument against a higher minimum wage. I'm sure you free market types will agree that a business which only remains open due to artificially low labor prices doesn't deserve to be in business. Right? Right? Oh... you mean it was just an act? :toobadsosad:
 
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Adapt the Nordic Model if you wish to survive the 4th industrial revolution.
 
Someone needs to explain to him where corporations get their customers (and make their money).

Hint, it's by their customer working to make money so it can be spent on goods and services. If you take out part of that equation, the other side will seek equilibrium (e.g. less workers in the overall workforce = less customers = less profits).

If a B2C company starts making less money, they'll likely cut back on some B2B services. It trickles down.
It's too abstract for each company to be concerned with, since their chief concerns are short term profits. It's not that they don't understand the concept, it's an economic system where everyone running things is operating on a policy of "not my problem."
 
Ultimately everything should be automated with every citizen designated a portion of the robotic workforce as their representative that pays for their "welfare." Moreover, production should become a lot like the cloud, where it's relatively cheap for the average person to mass produce their own customized designs a la 3D printing. That combination would achieve the Marxist ideal of no labor where all energy can be spent on leisure, politics, and artisanship. Corporations would still compete in the capitalistic manner in order to get the best returns on the automated labor market while government would remain in charge of regulation (albeit less on worker safety and more product liability). Ideally this would be coupled with genetic engineering and lower birth-rates worldwide which would still leave resources and culture as the primary differences; culture would become a commodity, though, reflected in personal designs, while resources would be pegged to a universal "worker" standard in terms of raw production.

The alarmism we see from people like Elon Musk (pushing UBI) and Stephen Hawking (space colonization) are essentially founded on antiquated concepts. Really, they're almost late Victorian-era solutions to modern problems. It's like authors writing about flying cars a century ago. We have great technologies and an evolving paradigm in society today and I think that while they are certainly forward thinkers they are trying to solve it here and now. They focus on the negatives without realizing the potential of the positives. The last thing you want to do is give power to the oligarchy and government (UBI) or place a faint hope on a fringe concept (space colonization). You have to overcome the class system as a whole in a semi-Marxist context whereby everyone is agreed an equal platform while having endless opportunity. Capitalism is inherently compatible with such a system if you leverage the technology properly.
Your solution appears to depend on a general sense of fairness in implementing, which I think is the exact opposite of where we're heading. I would operate under the assumption that the powers that are profiting off the current system will do absolutely everything in their power to keep it going as-is, or at least in a way that remains highly profitable for them, no matter how many people that is to the detriment of. Any change that leads to individuals already at the top making LESS money in the short or long term will be met with maximum resistance.
 
so bring on 75% tax rate?

Actually, if you go the absolutely extreme route of having a UBI as a replacement for pretty much every non-essential government service, you can sustain a UBI of around $35-40k at current tax levels. And that's assuming that UBI income goes untaxed (because that would be stupid). That being said, Income taxes should probably nudge up, especially at the top, if a UBI is implemented. (Note I've long held that anyone making less then $80k or so shouldn't be paying taxes period; its counter productive to long-term economic growth).

A UBI also cleanly solves the minimum wage problem; since a decent chunk of income is already available, there is less of a need for a high minimum wage (though I caution about removing it entirely; too much potential for abuse). Nevermind wages should rise (hopefully enough to offset inflation) due to less workers in the workforce.
 
so bring on 75% tax rate?

Not even remotely close.

The point of universal income is also to remove all the heaps of management that includes unemployment, pension, deductions etc. So you no longer need the administration and control behind it.
For most countries it pretty much comes for free and may boost innovation, since more people can take the dive to startup their own business with less risk.

No matter if you like it or not, there are 2 things that is certain for the future.
Massive automation including office jobs.
Much lower working hours for those that still work.

You will also have to move a lot of money from cold to warm hands. Since while automation removes a lot of jobs, you still need the same hours with daycare, elder care, hospital care, educational facilities etc.

This is also why its going to be really painful for the countries like the US and likewise quite easy with the Nordic Model countries and countries with an established welfare state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model

Welcome to the future.
 
No. Yes there is a lot of wasted spending but it is not enough to provided universal health care and income for 330 milions people. Taking more money from rich people isnt the answer. In the end the middle class gets hit the hardest. Do you want to go and pay $10 for a gallon of gas. $30k for a base model car? A million dollars for a 1200sqft house? All it does is make everyone equally poor but the top 1% and the people pulling all the strings. That is the end game. Make everyone too reliant on the government and you have a population that is easy to control.

The US already spends more on healthcare then any country with with universal healthcare.
 
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Your solution appears to depend on a general sense of fairness in implementing, which I think is the exact opposite of where we're heading. I would operate under the assumption that the powers that are profiting off the current system will do absolutely everything in their power to keep it going as-is, or at least in a way that remains highly profitable for them, no matter how many people that is to the detriment of. Any change that leads to individuals already at the top making LESS money in the short or long term will be met with maximum resistance.

I don't disagree. Rather I'm saying the outlook of people like Musk and Hawking just buy into that. People embrace celebrity far too much despite it being, in reality, counter to their "movement."

I do believe we are in a "race condition" whereby it will come to a point where the lack of ethics and the access to raw resources will reach a tipping point, where China may reach automation prior to social revolution, in which case humanity will suffer for a long time before redeeming itself. The history of the planet has plenty of moments like that and indeed the history of mankind has faced that many times. It's likely we'll face that again. Fringe elements (space colonization) have always been an important part of evolution - mankind as of even 100,000 years ago faced near-extinction - and an egalitarian mindset (UBI) is part of the tribal genome. Nature is neutral and cutthroat, though, as it should be, and altruism has traditionally under-performed. Power accumulates at the top but as resource efficiency grows that wealth extends. I said Marxist because "labor seizes the means of production" is pretty much the solution - this coming from a conservative.

They'll fight it all the way. Just be aware that Musk despite being a visionary in engineering has succumbed to that viewpoint because he trusts in raw capitalism, and people like the Pope and Hawking succumbed to the socialist aspect (cooperative "utopias" have failed since the 19th century). Two heads of the same coin. In an age where I can share a real-time video of my life to someone halfway across the world, such archaic restraints are simply obsolete.
 
Now that everyone is arguing over taxes and crap, back to the whole premise of trying to replace the "low productivity job" Do you guys even realize he is suggesting replacing job where human interaction is a NECESSITY? Social workers? Healthcare? Sorry answering a bunch of questions from an robot doesn't help someone FEEL better. People need the interaction and the felt of genuine care to have a good reaction and turn towards recovery especially when trying to recover from something. Robots are still cold and heartless when it comes to social interaction.
 
Minimum wage killing restaurants in SF. Maybe we should replace workers with robots and kick out all the poor people so more of the rich leftist can live there?
The first article cites a whole bunch of problems (ie. increasing rents, high CoL in SF, difficulty getting good staff, etc.) not just wages.

The 2nd one actually does link to a OK study (welll a working paper but looks OK so whatever) to back up its claims (which is good) but buried within that study the author mentions offhand in a footnote:

"The limited existing evidence on the interaction effect of firm dynamics and employment has been mixed. Anderson et al. (forthcoming) find the minimum wage increases exit (and entry) but do not find any impacts on employment. Draca and Machin (2011) find some evidence that minimum wages decreases net entry but no significant effects on employment."

So its pretty far from definitive that increased wages are driving restaurants out of business. I'd also point out that the study a highly neoliberal college (Harvard). There are also earlier studies (from the 90's) on this subject showing that increasing min. wage has a neglible effect on businesses over all. The author of that paper is a Princeton guy, so hardly left leaning at all, the guys there are generally staunchly Conservative in their economics though not as bad as Harvard.[/B]
 
Now that everyone is arguing over taxes and crap, back to the whole premise of trying to replace the "low productivity job" Do you guys even realize he is suggesting replacing job where human interaction is a NECESSITY? Social workers? Healthcare? Sorry answering a bunch of questions from an robot doesn't help someone FEEL better. People need the interaction and the felt of genuine care to have a good reaction and turn towards recovery especially when trying to recover from something. Robots are still cold and heartless when it comes to social interaction.
Why is human interaction in those fields a necessity? Why is addressing someone's feelings needed?
 
Yes there is a lot of wasted spending but it is not enough to provided universal health care
A UHS would be a drastic cost reduction overall to the economy, not a increase. The US spends about twice what other countries does on healthcare for the same or similar quality of care. I don't have good numbers off hand for what a UBI or Mincome would cost but neither have I seen anything to show that its impossible either.

Taking more money from rich people isnt the answer.
They have the lion's share of the wealth and money, taxing them more will be fine, they'll still be rich. Just not as rich.

And yes I know they pay for quite a bit of the total tax share already. But that isn't a sign of them overpaying. Its a sign of how much people have fallen into poverty (tax brackets are set up so you get taxed less if you make less).

Do you want to go and pay $10 for a gallon of gas. $30k for a base model car? A million dollars for a 1200sqft house?
Gas prices would be unaffected by a tax on wealth that targeted the rich primarily. People already pay over $30K on average for a new car and have for years. And depending on where you live homes can cost easily over $1 million for that much square footage.


All it does is make everyone equally poor but the top 1% and the people pulling all the strings. That is the end game. Make everyone too reliant on the government and you have a population that is easy to control.
Completely backwards. Taking money from the rich and giving to the poor via redistributive taxation will make the poor much less poor, maybe even make them able to live decently. And the 1% are already pulling all the strings and have been for years. Having the govt. take money from them to give to the rest of the population won't make them any more powerful either. It'll make them weaker. Which would be a good thing at this point.
 
Actually, if you go the absolutely extreme route of having a UBI as a replacement for pretty much every non-essential government service, you can sustain a UBI of around $35-40k at current tax levels. And that's assuming that UBI income goes untaxed (because that would be stupid). That being said, Income taxes should probably nudge up, especially at the top, if a UBI is implemented. (Note I've long held that anyone making less then $80k or so shouldn't be paying taxes period; its counter productive to long-term economic growth).

Do you have a source for those $35-40k level UBI? Because the math just doesn't check out on my end. There are ~245 million adults in the US (I am assuming kids don't get UBI), so $35k times 245 million = 8.575 trillion dollars. According http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_revenue_2016USrn , total Federal, State, and Local Tax revenue comes out to $6.53 trillion last year. So that leaves you $2 trillion short, even before having the government be able to pay for schools, roads, the military, police, and the other useful things that it handles.

To add to that, we have specific government programs that channel money in a certain way for a reason. Take school lunch programs for example; in some areas kids end up eating breakfast & lunch at school, and having food packed up for them to eat later, because their parents barely bother to feed them anything but chips and carbonated beverages (even if nearly every parent in the district is on EBT. . . ). If you just gave the money to the parents, through UBI, then you would end up having a lot more malnurished children in these areas, with all the problems that causes later on. The same thing ends up being true for housing programs & EBT itself, and other similar programs. A certain percentage of the population will blow any excess cash it gets on booze, drugs, gambling, and other stupid stuff, even if their children are starving.

I should also note that we do have test areas in the US, where everyone in a certain group is getting a basic income, from the Federal Government and collectively owned business operations (casinos). They are called Indian Reservations. Living near one myself, it makes me very skeptical of how UBI would play out across the US.
 
Why is human interaction in those fields a necessity? Why is addressing someone's feelings needed?
The worry for those jobs is that the machines will not be able to address everyone's needs adequately and instead will just follow a "script" that hypothetically could result in a lot of people getting screwed over.

Problem with that though is that pretty much already happens now. Changing the worker there won't really help. You have to change the guys who are writing the "script" so to speak.
 
According http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_revenue_2016USrn , total Federal, State, and Local Tax revenue comes out to $6.53 trillion last year. So that leaves you $2 trillion short
Tax revenue would be increased by increasing taxes on the rich to address that issue. Personally I think a UBI/Mincome that provided $35K+ a year is a little too high to work out but I don't know all the details on the numbers (ie. you also have to account for all that money essentially be respent back into the economy) and I can't speak for him there.

because their parents barely bother to feed them anything but chips and carbonated beverages (even if nearly every parent in the district is on EBT. . . ). If you just gave the money to the parents, through UBI, then you would end up having a lot more malnurished children in these areas, with all the problems that causes later on.
That isn't a UBI/welfare problem, that is a bad parenting problem. That would be solved through other means (ie. CPS). While its true you can't fix bad parents by giving them more money (they'll just mispend it) you can't assume everyone who would get such money would mispend it too. Not everyone on welfare or a UBI would automagically become a bad parent.

A certain percentage of the population will blow any excess cash it gets on booze, drugs, gambling, and other stupid stuff, even if their children are starving.
So because it can't be perfect it can't possibly do any good either?

Nothing will ever be perfect and a few will always abuse anything you give them to help but better is still a improvement worth striving for.

They are called Indian Reservations. Living near one myself, it makes me very skeptical of how UBI would play out across the US.
A casino isn't a UBI/Mincome and the social problems with Indian Reservations are what would happen to any group of people that was oppressed and virtually killed off after centuries of violence and attempts at genocide.
 
Not even remotely close.

The point of universal income is also to remove all the heaps of management that includes unemployment, pension, deductions etc. So you no longer need the administration and control behind it.
For most countries it pretty much comes for free and may boost innovation, since more people can take the dive to startup their own business with less risk.

No matter if you like it or not, there are 2 things that is certain for the future.
Massive automation including office jobs.
Much lower working hours for those that still work.

You will also have to move a lot of money from cold to warm hands. Since while automation removes a lot of jobs, you still need the same hours with daycare, elder care, hospital care, educational facilities etc.

This is also why its going to be really painful for the countries like the US and likewise quite easy with the Nordic Model countries and countries with an established welfare state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model

Welcome to the future.
Maybe you should move to Norway comrade and join the workers paradise... Norway relative to the United States is a tiny, tiny country. It is another country, like Saudi Arabia, whose oil resources are able to finance social projects otherwise affordable to most other countries. Another consideration is the rise in it's elderly population and the rise (!!!) of an un-assimilating immigrant population. Similarly Norway is about to drastically increase it's military spending. We shall see how well the Norwegian economy is able to handle these challenges. Marxism has always failed and at some point Norway will be forced to return to a capitalist solution to deal with it's increasing problems.

Similarly I will dispute your assertions that your two things are certain for the future. As more workers are displaced the population of unemployed workers will increase. A surplus of workers leads to lower wages. Automation currently requires extensive capital investment that is out of reach for small and medium businesses. A global conflict or multiple populist revolutions could easily disrupt the progression of the adaption of technologies leading to a robotic world.

Marxist proponents of a universal income ignores the critical fact that people will "always" want more... The universal wage will "never" be enough. Free men and women will resist, revolt and overthrow the totalitarian regime that seeks to impose the role of "peasants" upon the working class. The only thing that is certain is the future is uncertain.
 
Maybe you should move to Norway comrade and join the workers paradise... Norway relative to the United States is a tiny, tiny country. It is another country, like Saudi Arabia, whose oil resources are able to finance social projects otherwise affordable to most other countries. Another consideration is the rise in it's elderly population and the rise (!!!) of an un-assimilating immigrant population. Similarly Norway is about to drastically increase it's military spending. We shall see how well the Norwegian economy is able to handle these challenges. Marxism has always failed and at some point Norway will be forced to return to a capitalist solution to deal with it's increasing problems.

Similarly I will dispute your assertions that your two things are certain for the future. As more workers are displaced the population of unemployed workers will increase. A surplus of workers leads to lower wages. Automation currently requires extensive capital investment that is out of reach for small and medium businesses. A global conflict or multiple populist revolutions could easily disrupt the progression of the adaption of technologies leading to a robotic world.

Marxist proponents of a universal income ignores the critical fact that people will "always" want more... The universal wage will "never" be enough. Free men and women will resist, revolt and overthrow the totalitarian regime that seeks to impose the role of "peasants" upon the working class. The only thing that is certain is the future is uncertain.

I already live in Denmark so I dont need to move to Norway or anywhere else. I already enjoy all the benefits. Oh, and did I mention we have a better economy than the US too on top? And we are still AAA credit rated. And no, its not oil, just plain productivity and creativity.
https://www.moodys.com/research/Moodys-affirms-Denmarks-Aaa-issuer-rating-stable-outlook--PR_363828

In workers paradise here even my mortgage interest rate is MINUS 0.54%.

I see the red scare indoctrination still works in the US. Sad, real sad. And no wonder you got burned hard. :joyful:
 
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That isn't a UBI/welfare problem, that is a bad parenting problem. That would be solved through other means (ie. CPS). While its true you can't fix bad parents by giving them more money (they'll just mispend it) you can't assume everyone who would get such money would mispend it too. Not everyone on welfare or a UBI would automagically become a bad parent.


So because it can't be perfect it can't possibly do any good either?

Nothing will ever be perfect and a few will always abuse anything you give them to help but better is still a improvement worth striving for.

Gamerk2 proposed replacing existing government welfare programs with a UBI system. I was pointing out that if that occurred, our society would see problems caused by some people being unable to handle cash, that are currently alleviated by non-direct cash programs (like school lunches & EBT), that many people would find unacceptable, like hungry children. So if UBI replaced existing welfare programs, it wouldn't be long before people are calling for things like school lunches to be brought back, on top of the UBI funding. So any realistic discussion of how much UBI funding would be possible would need to factor in that most of the non-direct cash programs may still be needed in some form.
 
Norway relative to the United States is a tiny, tiny country.
That doesn't matter. What does is GDP, tax income, and what standard of living you want to make possible with a UBI/Mincome. Its just like any other govt. program in a financial sense so it all comes down to the math.

It is another country, like Saudi Arabia, whose oil resources are able to finance social projects otherwise affordable to most other countries.
Its true that oil money has helped Norway's finances considerably but they'd probably still be doing quite well for themselves even without the oil money. Pre-oil boom (early 70's) quality of life was generally on par with or close to Sweden which is quite high.

Another consideration is the rise in it's elderly population and the rise (!!!) of an un-assimilating immigrant population.
Every country is having issues with a increasing elderly population but that isn't a guarantee that a UBI/Mincome can't work The numbers for Norway don't seem particularly bad. Same thing goes for a country with a increasing number of immigrants

Marxism has always failed and at some point Norway will be forced to return to a capitalist solution to deal with it's increasing problems.
Socialism isn't Marxism and Norway has had a mixed Socialist/Captialist economy for decades post WWII and has done quite well. Same thing goes for many European countries too. Several of them had better debt to GDP ratios than the US up until the Credit Crisis hit globally around 2007/8....then they decided (much like the US) to bail out their banks instead of helping their citizens. But that is a EU issue and not necessarily a Norwegian one.
 
Socialism isn't Marxism and Norway has had a mixed Socialist/Captialist economy for decades post WWII and has done quite well. Same thing goes for many European countries too. Several of them had better debt to GDP ratios than the US up until the Credit Crisis hit globally around 2007/8....then they decided (much like the US) to bail out their banks instead of helping their citizens. But that is a EU issue and not necessarily a Norwegian one.
How exactly can one be socialist and capitalist at the same time? They're two opposing systems.
 
Gamerk2 proposed replacing existing government welfare programs with a UBI system.
Alright so how was my reply not in context or relevant to your post then? You do appear to be arguing against a UBI/Mincome and I was addressing the reasons you were giving.

So if UBI replaced existing welfare programs, it wouldn't be long before people are calling for things like school lunches to be brought back, on top of the UBI funding. So any realistic discussion of how much UBI funding would be possible would need to factor in that most of the non-direct cash programs may still be needed in some form.
There is no reason to believe that most non-direct cash programs would still be needed (edit) to be funded at the same levels, people for instance would still need to eat, have water, electricity, and keep a roof over their heads which would account for much of any UBI/Mincome for instance.

That a few would misspend so heavily that some of those programs would need to exist in some fashion doesn't mean the idea can't work. After all we're only talking about a relative few so the costs would be low for those programs. Unless of course you're arguing that being on a UBI/Mincome will automagically make everyone on it misspend heavily...because that is really the only way what you're saying makes sense which is why I brought it up.
 
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How exactly can one be socialist and capitalist at the same time? They're two opposing systems.
Because neither system is required to exist as an absolute and you can blend them any which way you want by using the law to grant exemptions for certain classes of businesses or to regulate and tax them as necessary. Click on Shintai's link if you really want to know more but pretty much all of the EU has been using some sort of hybrid Socialist/Capitalist economic system for decades.

I don't see anything that can be considered Socialist in that model.
The strong welfare/social safety net funded through taxes is a big part of the Socialist aspect of their economy.

That is why so many GOP'ers rail on Social Security/SNAP/etc. as Socialism and therefore "bad".
 
Sooner or later the realization must set in for everyone.
The distribution of wealth based on jobs no longer works, because there are far more people around than jobs.

There are really only two viable options here, the alternative being do nothing and face the consequences which will be a recession that is a hundred times worse than the real estate crash in the 2000s or even the not so great depression.

  1. Universal basic income for those who don't win the job lottery
  2. Reduced 30-20-10 hour work weeks for everyone, while keeping the same wages.

The latter would probably be impossible to hammer trough corporations, but the former would also require huge tax increases for corporations. Which they will fight with all their lobbying power to the bitter end. Either way the ball is held by the corporations. Will they wait until they themselves start to suffer the recession, or will they compromise before that.
 
Because neither system is required to exist as an absolute and you can blend them any which way you want by using the law to grant exemptions for certain classes of businesses or to regulate and tax them as necessary. Click on Shintai's link if you really want to know more but pretty much all of the EU has been using some sort of hybrid Socialist/Capitalist economic system for decades.


The strong welfare/social safety net funded through taxes is a big part of the Socialist aspect of their economy.

That is why so many GOP'ers rail on Social Security/SNAP/etc. as Socialism and therefore "bad".
I think you are missing the point of socialism. Social Security is a program not a government model. Socalism is based on the government model where the citizens are told how and where to conduct their business and they take what they want from that business. They have social programs but Socialism is very much opposing to Capitalism because the capitalists have the freedom to buy and sell what they want how they want with little input from government (which is eroding in our society).
 
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