Post: #801

My best guess is that these companies are profitable but they're pushing everything into growth in order to appeal to investors and drive the stock price up. Everyone's investing in Amazon because they think they'll have an absolute monopoly.

Post: #802

(04-12-2019 01:29 PM)911 Wrote:  [

The great thing about Yang's UBI is that it breaks the welfare monopoly of the perennial welfare class, and it could eventually be a powerful tool against the bankster class as well, if UBI is issued directly/debt-free via the US Treasury (ie, the gov prints it, interest-free).

I think accepting the UBI is accepting serfdom from the elite fuckheads who ripped off trillions of dollars from the American middle class, and ripped off your entire future, and want to pay you a pittance to keep you quiet.

Within a few years of starting a UBI, they'll pass a whole range of laws mandating the "social behavior" you must demonstrate in order to continue getting your UBI. Using too much single-use plastic packaging? $500 deducted from your UBI. Refusing to call a trans person "she?" Tried to ask a girl out on a date without permission? Asking too many questions? Voting for an unapproved candidate? Not allowing your 6-year old kid to be trained in anal sex safety by the local gay activists? $1000 dollar deduction.

Post: #803

Here’s the thing. America doesn’t make sense anymore. It’s a free-for-all circus with various squabbling ethnic groups and competing interests. I see a lot of guys trying to be all logical, talking about “the economy” and muh GDP muh where are we gonna get the money etc etc.

Guys, let it go. America as we know it is gone. That’s not to be confused with doom and gloom. It’s just the way things are now. We have mentally ill freaks reading stories to our kids, we have a sodomite running for President, and we have congressional hearings about the evils of being a whitey. At the same time legal and illegal immigrants are pouring across the borders. It’s a fucking circus. Now we have one of the circus trainers offering you 1k a month. Just shut up and take it.

Post: #804

(04-12-2019 07:32 PM)TigerMandingo Wrote:  Here’s the thing. America doesn’t make sense anymore. It’s a free-for-all circus with various squabbling ethnic groups and competing interests. I see a lot of guys trying to be all logical, talking about “the economy” and muh GDP muh where are we gonna get the money etc etc.

Guys, let it go. America as we know it is gone. That’s not to be confused with doom and gloom. It’s just the way things are now. We have mentally ill freaks reading stories to our kids, we have a sodomite running for President, and we have congressional hearings about the evils of being a whitey. At the same time legal and illegal immigrants are pouring across the borders. It’s a fucking circus. Now we have one of the circus trainers offering you 1k a month. Just shut up and take it.

No thank you Comrade

Post: #805

Post: #806

So what exactly are we not comprehending here Sumanguru? It's welfare for all, is it not? I don't see how it's anything else. It's also a pittance, the 1K that this genius Yang is offering to pay everyone with other people's money. Who the hell can live on 1K/month? That barely covers half of my rent. For me and many others it'll be a net negative cash flow because the VAT is going to cost me way more than 1K/month between my business and personal expenses. A lot of you guys want this precisely for the purpose of not having to work so that you can go live it up in some 3rd world "pussy paradise" while productive citizens who want better for themselves are stuck paying the bill for all of this nonsense.

Mr. Lemon is right, why do people want to be cucks of the government? To willingly give them this much power over you just for a tiny amount of guaranteed money? Mr. Lemon asks some very good questions. How about illegals? You know there will be a push to include them in the UBI if not at the start, then eventually. You guys ok with that? If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

Post: #807

(04-12-2019 09:10 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  So what exactly are we not comprehending here Sumanguru? It's welfare for all. It's a pittance, the 1K that this genius Yang is offering to pay everyone with other people's money. Who the hell can live on 1K/month?

Someone in Wyoming who pays 300 dollars a month in rent?

Quote: That barely covers half of my rent. For me and many others it'll be a net negative cash flow because the VAT is going to cost me way more than 1K/month between my business and personal expenses.

Yes, it is a wealth transfer from the wealthiest americans to the middle class.


Try looking at it from a different way, I don't know what sort of doctor you are, but with UBI, more people will be able to afford your services and you end up making a lot more money with UBI.

Quote: A lot of you guys want this precisely for the purpose of not having to work so that you can go live it up in some 3rd world "pussy paradise" while productive citizens who want better for themselves are stuck paying the bill for all of this nonsense.

Expats that are living and paying tax in another country wouldn't be eligible for the 1000/month. I would make more trips to Colombia though. And what's wrong with that?

Quote:Mr. Lemon is right, why do people want to be cucks of the government? To willingly give them this much power over you just for a tiny amount of guaranteed money? Mr. Lemon asks some very good questions. How about illegals? You know there will be a push to include them in the UBI if not at the start, then eventually. You guys ok with that? If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

What exactly is your plan for the 20 million workers that are going to be replaced by robot drivers, robot call center workers, machines in amazon factories?

Let them eat cake? That is essentially what you are arguing for.

Post: #808

My previous fucking post Wrote:Jesus. I'm on record with being disappointed with the God Emperor, but I don't go into that thread and bring up the same old points over and over again like the people against UBI here have done. ("Who's going to pay for it?" "Aren't you just being lazy?" "But there's plenty of jobs right now, so the future will be like that too, right?" "SOCIALISM!") Discussion is one thing, and welcome, but a lot of the people who are arguing haven't done the research, haven't listened to Andrew's plethora of interviews on multiple channels where he's addressed their concerns, and aren't coming from a position of good faith where you assume the person with a different perspective isn't a laz piece of shit. If you don't want to be here, don't be.

Gonna stop feeding the trolls from here on--and yes, coming in to a thread and talking shit without doing any research, and assuming we're all lazy fucks, is fucking trolling. I recommend we all do the same, because there's great discussion here about the future of humanity and I'd hate to lose that.

My boy punching to the left

Also, automated taxi service from Nissan in Japan on the way in 2020. When this hits America, let's be sure to tell all the Uber drivers to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

Post: #809

(04-12-2019 09:10 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  So what exactly are we not comprehending here Sumanguru?

Mr. Lemon is right, why do people want to be cucks of the government? To willingly give them this much power over you just for a tiny amount of guaranteed money? Mr. Lemon asks some very good questions. How about illegals? You know there will be a push to include them in the UBI if not at the start, then eventually. You guys ok with that? If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

I can't speak to what you're not getting, since I'm not a mind reader, but the big thing I see not being addressed is this: automation and winner-take-all economics mean it's not a choice between a healthy economy where everyone works hard, and a UBI world where everyone buys pot with their Yangbucks and slacks off all day. It's UBI versus the entire country turning into either San Francisco (Incredibly wealthy, fucked-up, and miserable) and Bakersfield California (Incredibly poor, fucked-up, and miserable.)

I keep asking what the solution to this is and I keep getting ignored, or getting weird non-sequiters like "Government is the problem" or "Abolish the IRS". Or I'm told that I just want Yangbucks so I don't have to work.
I've even tried outright asking people by name several times in this thread, and I just get ignored.

It's more than a little frustrating, honestly.

Post: #810

(04-12-2019 10:46 AM)eradicator Wrote:  No dude, re read the highlighted portion that you quoted. He is talking about the federal reserve, which is not controlled by the government, but rather a private entity made up of 12 banks


from Wikipedia

Quote:A Federal Reserve Bank is a regional bank of the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States. There are twelve in total, one for each of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts that were created by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.[1] The banks are jointly responsible for implementing the monetary policy set forth by the Federal Open Market Committee, and are divided as follows:
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Some banks also possess branches, with the whole system being headquartered at the Eccles Building in Washington, D.C.

Yes, the fed is headquartered in Washington DC. No, the monetary policy and the federal reserve are not controlled or governed by the usa government.

The president appoints the chair of the fed but doesn't have any control over her.

Even though the government doesn't administer the Federal Reserve, it's a little misleading to think of it as a strictly private entity. As the above excerpt from wiki states, the system was created by a piece of government legislation, the Federal Reserve Act. The U.S. government is responsible for its creation has the power to abolish it.

Post: #811

(04-12-2019 09:44 PM)Sumanguru Wrote:  Also, automated taxi service from Nissan in Japan on the way in 2020. When this hits America, let's be sure to tell all the Uber drivers to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

I hadn't heard of this, so I went and looked it up. The tech is currently undergoing testing in Yokohama, a city near Tokyo, and it's at the point where it's giving rides to journalists, who think it's the coolest thing ever.

The JP government is slinging around tons of cash to prepare Japan for the 2020 Olympics. A lot of the train stations are getting modernized, the taxi drivers just introduced an uber-like app, etc.. I guarantee you this neat, futuristic little toy is heavily funded by Japanese taxpayer dollars, and all the relative permits to operate in Tokyo are already filed. Assuming the tech works, it'll be running by Summer of 2020, and become worldwide news.

Post: #812

(04-12-2019 09:48 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

(04-12-2019 09:10 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  So what exactly are we not comprehending here Sumanguru?

Mr. Lemon is right, why do people want to be cucks of the government? To willingly give them this much power over you just for a tiny amount of guaranteed money? Mr. Lemon asks some very good questions. How about illegals? You know there will be a push to include them in the UBI if not at the start, then eventually. You guys ok with that? If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

I can't speak to what you're not getting, since I'm not a mind reader, but the big thing I see not being addressed is this: automation and winner-take-all economics mean it's not a choice between a healthy economy where everyone works hard, and a UBI world where everyone buys pot with their Yangbucks and slacks off all day. It's UBI versus the entire country turning into either San Francisco (Incredibly wealthy, fucked-up, and miserable) and Bakersfield California (Incredibly poor, fucked-up, and miserable.)

I keep asking what the solution to this is and I keep getting ignored, or getting weird non-sequiters like "Government is the problem" or "Abolish the IRS". Or I'm told that I just want Yangbucks so I don't have to work.
I've even tried outright asking people by name several times in this thread, and I just get ignored.

It's more than a little frustrating, honestly.

The UBI is just going to make everyone poorer and more miserable. It'll only serve to widen the gap between rich and poor, worse than it is now. This how it goes in most socialist countries. Venezuela is exhibit A for this. Yang is massively underestimating the cost of his program too. The experiment they did in Finland with UBI was a failure precisely because the people who got it, slacked off and were unmotivated to do anything productive in their lives. Finland recently scrapped it for this reason.

Concrete things that could be done that do not involve full out socialism and getting Yang banged would include:

-Allow bankruptcy for student loans after 7 years of holding the loan
-Force the colleges who benefited from loans taken for useless degrees to payback the loans. These schools have huge endowments that they will need to liquidate to make tax payers whole.
-Cap the interest on student loans to the fed rate, ie the rate that the fed loans money to the big banks

All of this would cause college tuition to plummet, and allow young people buried in student loan debt to dig their way out, therby helping to solve one of the if not the biggest problem for young people.

There's tons more stuff that can be done including making it easier and cheaper for employers to hire people and reduce the demand for automation.

Yang won't talk about any of this stuff because he wants a population dependent on him for their existence. No thanks to that. His views on the Electoral College are sound however.

Post: #813

(04-12-2019 10:19 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  Yang won't talk about any of this stuff because he wants a population dependent on him for their existence. No thanks to that, he can suck a dick.

Yang won't talk about lowering the cost of college tuition?

Come on dude. At least run a google search. Both these are from his official page.

Quote:As President, I will…
Explore a gradual phase-in of a desired ratio of administrators to students of 1 to 30 as a condition of public funding as opposed to the current 1 to 21. The ratio was 1 to 50 in the 1970s – if we can get back to that level then college will be much cheaper.
Work with the Dept. of Education to create an information database on all post-secondary education institutions, focusing on information such as:
Avg. debt of a graduating student
Avg. debt discounting students who don’t take out loans
Avg. salary of a recent graduate
Avg. salary of a graduate 10 years out
Stipulate that any university that receives public funding cannot increase its costs by more than the rate of annual median wage growth the year before.
Stipulate that the president of any university that receives public funding must meet once per year with a group of alumni to discuss their job prospects.
Amend or modify the U.S. News and World Report rankings and eliminate the ability of any university to compensate administrators with incentives tied to their rankings.
Require all universities with endowments of over $30 billion to contribute 1% of their total endowment each year ($300 million+/year) to the founding and operations of a new university in Ohio until it becomes self-sustaining, at which point another community will be identified (the “Harvard Creates a New University in Ohio Tax”).
Revisit the tax-exempt status for schools that have more than enough money to fund their operations and aren’t investing that money back into the students at that institution.
Invest in and support schools that are innovating and growing.

Or maybe you think people shouldn't be wasting their money on college at all, and we need more people in the trades? Yang agrees!

Quote:It seems we’re preparing our children for college earlier and earlier. College readiness is a driving force behind many educational decisions in this country. This has resulted in only 6% of American high school students being enrolled in a vocational program (in 2013), whereas comparable European nations have numbers closer to 50%.
...
On the other side, the underemployment rate for recent college grads is approaching 44%, and one-third end up in jobs that don’t require the degree they earned.

College is being over-prescribed in this country. Not everyone has an interest in obtaining a college degree, and there are many jobs out there that don’t require it. Georgetown has estimated that there are 30 million good-paying jobs out there that don’t require a college degree. Most require some type of specialized training.

As a country, we need to dramatically increase our investment in vocational training, providing a viable career path for those students who are more interested in starting their careers immediately after high school instead of continuing with an education they don’t want but feel obligated to get.

There are tens of millions of jobs that will be with us for decades that don’t require a college degree: machinists, line repair, air-conditioning repair, exterminator, high-end manufacturing, and so on. We need to remove any stigma from vocational education and dramatically increase its visibility and availability. Apprenticeships should be a big part of the future of education for millions of Americans that would give them a runway to a fulfilling livelihood.

He's on top of this shit. The difference is that he feels, and I feel, that it ain't gonna be enough. These are palliative measures.

A college grad with no debt might be able to take an accounting job at 20$/hr instead of 30$/hr. But if the computer can automate her job for 1$/hr, it doesn't matter how much debt she has. She simply cannot compete no matter what she does.

Post: #814

(04-12-2019 09:36 PM)eradicator Wrote:  

(04-12-2019 09:10 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  So what exactly are we not comprehending here Sumanguru? It's welfare for all. It's a pittance, the 1K that this genius Yang is offering to pay everyone with other people's money. Who the hell can live on 1K/month?

Someone in Wyoming who pays 300 dollars a month in rent?

Quote: That barely covers half of my rent. For me and many others it'll be a net negative cash flow because the VAT is going to cost me way more than 1K/month between my business and personal expenses.

Yes, it is a wealth transfer from the wealthiest americans to the middle class.


Try looking at it from a different way, I don't know what sort of doctor you are, but with UBI, more people will be able to afford your services and you end up making a lot more money with UBI.

Quote: A lot of you guys want this precisely for the purpose of not having to work so that you can go live it up in some 3rd world "pussy paradise" while productive citizens who want better for themselves are stuck paying the bill for all of this nonsense.

Expats that are living and paying tax in another country wouldn't be eligible for the 1000/month. I would make more trips to Colombia though. And what's wrong with that?

Quote:Mr. Lemon is right, why do people want to be cucks of the government? To willingly give them this much power over you just for a tiny amount of guaranteed money? Mr. Lemon asks some very good questions. How about illegals? You know there will be a push to include them in the UBI if not at the start, then eventually. You guys ok with that? If something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is.

What exactly is your plan for the 20 million workers that are going to be replaced by robot drivers, robot call center workers, machines in amazon factories?

Let them eat cake? That is essentially what you are arguing for.

Wyoming is a sparsely populated state (albeit very beautiful and libertarian) and people who live in large east coast and west coast cities aren't going to move to Wyoming so my point about the 1K being a pittance stands.

As for there being more people affording my services with a UBI, the odds are that people will use the UBI to pay for recreational goods and services, not for health services. People receiving government money generally expect to have their health care delivered for free and they ain't going to spend their free money on something they think they should be already getting for free

For people who are going to be replaced by automation, I would support them receiving re-training in a different, more relevant vocation and large tech corporations like Google, Apple and Amazon who are aiding in advancing automation can underwrite the cost of this retraining. I've never once said that these people should eat cake but I don't think people are well served by getting free money for doing nothing.

As for you or anyone else having more opportunities to go to Colombia, you need to do that on your dime, not taxpayer dime.

Post: #815

(04-12-2019 10:24 PM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

(04-12-2019 10:19 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  Yang won't talk about any of this stuff because he wants a population dependent on him for their existence. No thanks to that, he can suck a dick.

Yang won't talk about lowering the cost of college tuition?

Come on dude. At least run a google search. Both these are from his official page.

Quote:As President, I will…
Explore a gradual phase-in of a desired ratio of administrators to students of 1 to 30 as a condition of public funding as opposed to the current 1 to 21. The ratio was 1 to 50 in the 1970s – if we can get back to that level then college will be much cheaper.
Work with the Dept. of Education to create an information database on all post-secondary education institutions, focusing on information such as:
Avg. debt of a graduating student
Avg. debt discounting students who don’t take out loans
Avg. salary of a recent graduate
Avg. salary of a graduate 10 years out
Stipulate that any university that receives public funding cannot increase its costs by more than the rate of annual median wage growth the year before.
Stipulate that the president of any university that receives public funding must meet once per year with a group of alumni to discuss their job prospects.
Amend or modify the U.S. News and World Report rankings and eliminate the ability of any university to compensate administrators with incentives tied to their rankings.
Require all universities with endowments of over $30 billion to contribute 1% of their total endowment each year ($300 million+/year) to the founding and operations of a new university in Ohio until it becomes self-sustaining, at which point another community will be identified (the “Harvard Creates a New University in Ohio Tax”).
Revisit the tax-exempt status for schools that have more than enough money to fund their operations and aren’t investing that money back into the students at that institution.
Invest in and support schools that are innovating and growing.

Or maybe you think people shouldn't be wasting their money on college at all, and we need more people in the trades? Yang agrees!

Quote:It seems we’re preparing our children for college earlier and earlier. College readiness is a driving force behind many educational decisions in this country. This has resulted in only 6% of American high school students being enrolled in a vocational program (in 2013), whereas comparable European nations have numbers closer to 50%.
...
On the other side, the underemployment rate for recent college grads is approaching 44%, and one-third end up in jobs that don’t require the degree they earned.

College is being over-prescribed in this country. Not everyone has an interest in obtaining a college degree, and there are many jobs out there that don’t require it. Georgetown has estimated that there are 30 million good-paying jobs out there that don’t require a college degree. Most require some type of specialized training.

As a country, we need to dramatically increase our investment in vocational training, providing a viable career path for those students who are more interested in starting their careers immediately after high school instead of continuing with an education they don’t want but feel obligated to get.

There are tens of millions of jobs that will be with us for decades that don’t require a college degree: machinists, line repair, air-conditioning repair, exterminator, high-end manufacturing, and so on. We need to remove any stigma from vocational education and dramatically increase its visibility and availability. Apprenticeships should be a big part of the future of education for millions of Americans that would give them a runway to a fulfilling livelihood.

He's on top of this shit. The difference is that he feels, and I feel, that it ain't gonna be enough. These are palliative measures.

A college grad with no debt might be able to take an accounting job at 20$/hr instead of 30$/hr. But if the computer can automate her job for 1$/hr, it doesn't matter how much debt she has. She simply cannot compete no matter what she does.

Ok fair enough, I agree with Yang here, no disagreement from me. Does he have any proposals to make it easier and less expensive to hire people? Like I said in an earlier post, one reason that automation is accelerating is because the gov has made it expensive to hire and keep employees. Between paying the FICA taxes, unemployment taxes, workers comp insurance, health care, there's no wonder that employers are looking to automation.

How about Social Security? Why do we blindly pay the Social Security tax to the gov so they can piss it away? Everyone should be able to take that 7.5% tax and put it into a savings account and then use it at retirement. Does Yang have anything to say on this idea?

Post: #816

(04-12-2019 09:54 PM)Ouroboros Wrote:  

(04-12-2019 10:46 AM)eradicator Wrote:  No dude, re read the highlighted portion that you quoted. He is talking about the federal reserve, which is not controlled by the government, but rather a private entity made up of 12 banks


from Wikipedia

Quote:A Federal Reserve Bank is a regional bank of the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States. There are twelve in total, one for each of the twelve Federal Reserve Districts that were created by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.[1] The banks are jointly responsible for implementing the monetary policy set forth by the Federal Open Market Committee, and are divided as follows:
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond
Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas
Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Some banks also possess branches, with the whole system being headquartered at the Eccles Building in Washington, D.C.

Yes, the fed is headquartered in Washington DC. No, the monetary policy and the federal reserve are not controlled or governed by the usa government.

The president appoints the chair of the fed but doesn't have any control over her.

Even though the government doesn't administer the Federal Reserve, it's a little misleading to think of it as a strictly private entity. As the above excerpt from wiki states, the system was created by a piece of government legislation, the Federal Reserve Act. The U.S. government is responsible for its creation has the power to abolish it.

Well, yeah, there is a lot of misleading around the Fed, those who aren't very well informed on the subject are going to buy into the carefully packaged public facade.

Have you ever met someone who worked at, or with the Fed?

Post: #817

(04-12-2019 10:53 PM)911 Wrote:  Have you ever met someone who worked at, or with the Fed?

No.

Post: #818

(04-12-2019 10:48 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  Ok fair enough, I agree with Yang here, no disagreement from me. Does he have any proposals to make it easier and less expensive to hire people? Like I said in an earlier post, one reason that automation is accelerating is because the gov has made it expensive to hire and keep employees. Between paying the FICA taxes, unemployment taxes, workers comp insurance, health care, there's no wonder that employers are looking to automation.

How about Social Security? Why do we blindly pay the Social Security tax to the gov so they can piss it away? Everyone should be able to take that 7.5% tax and put it into a savings account and then use it at retirement. Does Yang have anything to say on this idea?

If he does, he would never say it publicly until the election. Third rail of US politics and all that.

Even if he could say something about how expensive it has become to hire people, it's a much harder message for the masses to grasp, compared to "eat the rich."

Post: #819

(04-12-2019 11:23 PM)BlueMark Wrote:  

(04-12-2019 10:48 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  Ok fair enough, I agree with Yang here, no disagreement from me. Does he have any proposals to make it easier and less expensive to hire people? Like I said in an earlier post, one reason that automation is accelerating is because the gov has made it expensive to hire and keep employees. Between paying the FICA taxes, unemployment taxes, workers comp insurance, health care, there's no wonder that employers are looking to automation.

How about Social Security? Why do we blindly pay the Social Security tax to the gov so they can piss it away? Everyone should be able to take that 7.5% tax and put it into a savings account and then use it at retirement. Does Yang have anything to say on this idea?

If he does, he would never say it publicly until the election. Third rail of US politics and all that.

Even if he could say something about how expensive it has become to hire people, it's a much harder message for the masses to grasp, compared to "eat the rich."

Well I get that it's easier to promise free money to everyone as a means of getting elected but those two things I suggested would be infinitely more effective than "pussy paradise money".

Post: #820

(04-12-2019 10:48 PM)doc holliday Wrote:  Ok fair enough, I agree with Yang here, no disagreement from me. Does he have any proposals to make it easier and less expensive to hire people? Like I said in an earlier post, one reason that automation is accelerating is because the gov has made it expensive to hire and keep employees. Between paying the FICA taxes, unemployment taxes, workers comp insurance, health care, there's no wonder that employers are looking to automation.

How about Social Security? Why do we blindly pay the Social Security tax to the gov so they can piss it away? Everyone should be able to take that 7.5% tax and put it into a savings account and then use it at retirement. Does Yang have anything to say on this idea?

This goes back to the "not comprehending" thing that Sumanguru was harping on.
Automation is so much more powerful, and so much more efficient, that stripping away worker protections and social security isn't going to help. The robots are so much better and so much cheaper that you'd just be hurting workers for nothing in return. The robots work 24/7. They require no administration. They don't take sick days. They don't make mistakes. They don't pick fights with their co-workers. They just run and run and run.

There was a study done on the trucking industry, in fact, that showed that due to the efficiencies you'd gain in automated trucking, from the ability to brake perfectly, the ability to run constantly without the need for rest, etc. that the trucking industry could replace every single trucker with a computer and STILL pay them all a full salary and benefits while raking in hundreds of millions in profits.

This is the same logical flaw that you see with conservatives who laugh at poor people protesting for a higher wage. "If you ask for 15$ an hour, they'll just give your job to a robot!" I'm sure you've seen conservatives saying this a billion times.

The truth is, the robots are so much cheaper that humans can't compete no matter what wage they charge. .
Here's some math, and these are ballpark numbers because it's a forum post and I don't really care, but it should be about right.

Let's take the cashier position at a busy McDonalds. The McDonalds is open 18 hours a day, from 6:00 AM to 12:00 AM, and needs a cashier the whole time. McDonalds almost never close, so it's open 365 days a year.
If the minimum wage is what it's at right now, 10$, then it probably costs 15$ an hour after administration costs (A manager to schedule them, human resources to file their paperwork, etc.) and then FICA, unemployment, etc., all the other stuff you listed that's driving automation.
365*18*15 = 98550, or about 100k a year to staff that cashier position.

Now let's get rid of ALL the shit you mentioned. No more unemployment tax. No more paying into health insurance. No more FICA or social security. In fact, let's go a step further than that. Let's go super dystopia and cut our McDonalds cashier wages in half, and see if they can't compete with the robots. Let's slash their wage to 5$ an hour. Every McDonalds cashier in the country is now living 4 to a room in a small, shitty apartment, subsisting entirely off of ramen. No savings. No paid vacation or sick days. No health insurance. They are at bare sustanence level, barely one step above homeless.

How much does it cost to operate that cashier position now? We still need somebody to schedule them, etc. so let's say it's now 7$ an hour.
365*18*7 = 45990, about 50k a year to operate the cashier position.


Now, let's take a look at Robo-Cashier. You know what I mean, one of the robot ordering kiosks that have been introduced into every McDonalds in the country to take the jobs of cashiers. Here's a Quora post where an industry insider gives the cost of one of these kiosks as between 1500$ and 4500$. Let's assume McDonalds tricked theirs out, and it's 4500$. Let's also assume they buy a fancy service plan, and pay 100$ a month to keep the thing serviced and repaired. Let's also assume that the lifespan of one of these kiosks is three years.

The cost for the first year is 4500+1200, or 5700$. The cost for the next two years of its lifespan is just 1200$ a year. Over 3 years it costs 8100$.
Now let's compare.

Cost of Robo-Cashier for Three Years: 8100$.
Cost of Human Cashier for Three Years at current $10 minimum wage = 300,000$.
Cost of Human Cashier for Three Years with no taxes and minimum wage cut in half: 150,000$.

Money saved by replacing 10$ minimum wage cashier with robot: 292,000$, or 97% cost savings.
Money saved by replacing 5$, no tax minimum wage cashier with robot: 142,000$, or 94% cost savings.


Just for lolz, let's see what wage you'd have to pay a cashier in order to match the machine.
8100/(18*365*3)= .41$. To match the machine you'd need to pay your workers 41 cents an hour.

In order to compete, you'd have to get rid of every employer tax,and then drop the minimum wage by 95%. You think that's feasible?

We cannot solve this problem by fiddling with the tax rates, or cutting FICA, or anything else. We need new solutions and we need to start thinking of them now.

Post: #821

So because of this doomsday scenario that you've painted here where everyone one of us is going to be replaced by robots, we should all just throw up our hands and give up so we can have Andrew Yang save us? You guys are woke and get how screwed we are? I'd say this scenario is more doom porn than anything else. Almost like it's an excuse to stop trying to do anything. After all what's the point right, we're all just going to be replaced by robots. Thank god at least you guys are woke about it since I don't comprehend squat right? Unfortunately, you guys don't comprehend that your UBI won't solve one bit of any of this doomsday scenario, it'll merely accelerate the destruction of this civilization.

Post: #822

(04-13-2019 12:07 AM)doc holliday Wrote:  So because of this doomsday scenario that you've painted here where everyone one of us is going to be replaced by robots, we should all just throw up our hands and give up so we can have Andrew Yang save us?

It's the same question I keep posing to everybody in this thread. If you don't like a UBI, then Wat Do? What's your solution? If you don't think that large amounts of jobs are going to be automated, then show me how.
I gave you a real-world example and sourced my numbers. Don't just give me snippy, angry sarcasm.

Post: #823

(04-13-2019 12:20 AM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:  

(04-13-2019 12:07 AM)doc holliday Wrote:  So because of this doomsday scenario that you've painted here where everyone one of us is going to be replaced by robots, we should all just throw up our hands and give up so we can have Andrew Yang save us?

It's the same question I keep posing to everybody in this thread. If you don't like a UBI, then Wat Do? What's your solution? If you don't think that large amounts of jobs are going to be automated, then show me how.
I gave you a real-world example and sourced my numbers. Don't just give me snippy, angry sarcasm.

I already gave you some of my ideas but you're not interested in them. My ideas are not just diddling, nibbling around the edges. You reduce costs for employers and give them tax credits for hiring people, they'll slow down on the automation. Most employers will prefer to have real people working for the rather than robots who can potentially replace even them. I'm an employer and I can tell you that I don't want any robots ever in my office. For folks who do lose their livelihoods to automation, I said that pressure could be applied to Google, Amazon and the rest of the tech cabal pushing this AI to pay for re-training these people. Most people at heart want to work, they want to be useful and productive. They want barriers to their prosperity taken down. They don't want to suckle at Andrew Yang's nipple. He doesn't understand this which is why he has no chance to win. America does not want socialism. That people are proud and cherish self-reliance is a basic human trait that you or Yang don't seem to understand with all due respect Sam. You think people are miserable now, just wait until they get free money. Anything is better than a UBI which is soul crushing.

Post: #824

(04-13-2019 12:30 AM)doc holliday Wrote:  I already gave you some of my ideas but you're not interested in them. My ideas are not just diddling, nibbling around the edges. You reduce costs for employers and give them tax credits for hiring people, they'll slow down on the automation.

I showed you already why these numbers don't add up. The machines are too efficient for humans to compete at all. Tax breaks and cutting worker protections won't cut it.

Quote: Most employers will prefer to have real people working for the rather than robots who can potentially replace even them. I'm an employer and I can tell you that I don't want any robots ever in my office.

If you're using Quickbooks instead of hiring an accountant, you're using automation right now.

Quote: For folks who do lose their livelihoods to automation, I said that pressure could be applied to Google, Amazon and the rest of the tech cabal pushing this AI to pay for re-training these people.

Retrain... to do what? What fields do they need to go into that are safe from this, and is demand in those fields high enough to accomodate the number of workers that are going to need new positions?

Post: #825

Well Diop is my accountant and last time I saw him which was at a hockey game, I don't think he was a robot.

There will never be a loss of things that humans can do. Throughout history, technology has replaced the need for humans to do certain jobs yet here we still are with humans doing all sorts of jobs. We used to have blacksmiths, horse drawn carriage jockeys, telephone and telegraph operators and they all got replaced by technology. Guess what though, new stuff came along for humans to do and the same will happen in the future. In fact in many call centers, so many customers over the years bitched about automation that many of these call centers brought back their human operators. There's not one company I can't call today without reaching a live customer service rep if I want one, which I always do. I hate using the automated phone services. It was thought that the internet would put us all out of work when it was first invented 20 years ago but that dire prediction never occurred. Customers of a business will almost always prefer human interaction and they'll demand it of businesses. Hell even at the grocery store if I have a choice of a live cashier or an automated check out line, I go to the live cashier. Fuck using the auto check out, it blows.

Sam, I'm not sure where all of this pessimism about the future is coming from with a lot of you but things are not that bad. More people are employed now than at any other time in our history. Wages are finally going up due to demand for labor. Solve the student loan problem and let people have an awakening to reconnecting with each other and then things will really begin to take off. Retail stores may be decreasing but e commerce is exploding. Eradicator could be in Colombia getting his dick sucked by some chick Scotian introduced him to while his glow in the dark condom e commerce site is making him money. No one ever envisioned ecommerce possibilities like this even 10 years ago. When I was in my 20s, you couldn't even go to a place like Colombia, it was too damn dangerous. I'll bet the people in Colombia never thought that they would get to where they are now compared to the narco state they once were. Look I appreciate the discussion here which is why I've made a ton of posts in this thread but I can't submit to the doom and gloom here.