The Most Serious Issue Facing America and the World

[georgephillip]

If we eliminated most labor laws there would be a flood of new businesses cropping up of all kinds, eventually generating higher and higher wages

Are you including child labor laws?

 

[The Rabbi]

This is hugely important economic issue, and the answer will be transformative.

One way to consider this--when the technology emerges to allow trucks to move from one destination to another without drivers, be assured that the trucking companies will do just that. What happens, then, to the drivers as they all lose their jobs? Will we attempt to appease them through subsistance living based upon food stamps and housing support?

And (perhaps more importantly) how does the economy adjust to that huge drop in spendable incomes?

In other words, where will the money come from that the economy depends upon for consumer spending? Will we move back to feudalism?

All money comes from companies making a profit. Profit is the new money that grows our economy, companies creating value. Think about it, taxes, income, investments, it is all derived from evil, evil profit. Makes you sick, doesn't it?

You have a weird grasp of economics. In the federal reserve system, all money comes from debt creation. New debt is issued on the belief that tomorrow's economy will be wealthier than today's economy, and that has been true for the most part. We need a larger money supply to reflect more value in the economy.

All profit comes from labor. All of it. The central issue in the future will be based upon why labor doesn't receive adequate compensation from its efforts.

"Profit" is not an economic imperative, but INCOME certainly is. At the base, all economic activity is based upon compensation for labor. "Profit" is whatever is retained by businesses AFTER labor is compensated.

You kinda flunked Econ didntcha?

 

[Uncensored2008]

Liberalism is what is costing us jobs. Going offshore for economic reasons is good for our economy. Going offshore to escape endless government
taxes, mandates and regulations is not and companies are going offshore for both reasons.

We are also a services economy and becoming more so. And anyone who wants a job can get one. Unfortunately people think it's more embarrassing to have a job they don't want than be unemployed.

Not sure though how our companies shutting down because they can't compete with international competitors helps jobs either.

The bottom line is any harm done to our economy in this "last generation" was created by fear and resistance to change, not by accepting it. Our business culture is the best in the world. Stop handicapping us with fear

Kaz, I agree with you on government regulation and excessive taxation. But what I am addressing in this thread is a paradigm shift. The nature of production is changing. America needs a strategy to adjust to the changing reality of production.

A service job simply doesn't pay very much. IF we are resigned to an economy based on service jobs, then we are accepting that the middle class is over. Service jobs don't pay middle class wages. I see this as a serious issue, one that affects the fabric of the nation.

 

[Uncensored2008]

Yep my wife is in the services industry, she's an attorney.

That is traditionally termed a "professional job" not service. Same with accountants and doctors.

 

[Uncensored2008]

I quit my "full time job" a few years ago to become an independent consultant. I make more money now, and have control over both who I work for and when I work. The trend described in the OP isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Adaptation is the key here. Comparing today to 30 years ago, we may have lost a lot of manufacturing jobs - but on the other hand, there was no such thing as the internet, at least as we know it now.

How many people in this country work in tech today? I live in San Francisco, and perhaps it's the geography but it seems like everyone I meet works for Google or Soundcloud or Twitter.

None of those jobs existed 25 or 30 years ago.

From a purely statistical perspective, it is not break even. Google employees less people per dollar of revenue than virtually any brick and mortar outfit. Technology is a great thing, but tech jobs cannot and will not replace they jobs they displace. Technology builds faster, cheaper, and with better quality - all of these are great things. But 1 computer operator or Java programmer displacing 1,000 workers is still a heavy impact on the economy,

I agree that America will adapt, what I am asking is "how?"

 

[Uncensored2008]

The Industrial Revolution offered the potential to liberate humanity from the need to work by substituting machine labor in place of human labor, yet capitalism reserves all the resultant productivity gains for the owners of the machine. Guaranteed Annual Income would seem to be one solution.

History has well proven that to be a complete disaster. Communism is the fast path to failure. We see a society of innovation and you seek to cripple the incentive for innovation? This sort of proposal is the opposite of useful.

 

[Uncensored2008]

You have a weird grasp of economics. In the federal reserve system, all money comes from debt creation. New debt is issued on the belief that tomorrow's economy will be wealthier than today's economy, and that has been true for the most part. We need a larger money supply to reflect more value in the economy.

All profit comes from labor. All of it. The central issue in the future will be based upon why labor doesn't receive adequate compensation from its efforts.

"Profit" is not an economic imperative, but INCOME certainly is. At the base, all economic activity is based upon compensation for labor. "Profit" is whatever is retained by businesses AFTER labor is compensated.

I have no idea what leftist hate site you picked this idiocy up from, but it bears no resemblance to fact. You have no idea how the federal reserve system works nor even it's purpose.

You should take an introduction to economics class at the local community college - you have not so much as a clue what you are talking about.

 

[Uncensored2008]

[

Right, I keep following economics and you keep listening to liberal lawyers who obviously know more about economics, I'm just whacked, aren't I?

As for the Fed, you are talking about nominal money growth, I am talking about real money or economic growth.

Say kids have $10 in pretend money that represents an economy of 10 identical pencils. The value of a pencil is obviously $1. Let's say the teacher enters the game with another $10 but no pencils. The additional money didn't increase the amount of pencils in the game, it created no economic value. It just cut the value of a pencil to 50 cents and she stole half the money the kids had because before they could have 10 pencils between them and she just took 5 of them for herself for doing nothing.

That is the Fed, it steals from the American people, it is a criminal organization. And the money it issues is a pure regressive tax. Both conservatives and liberals would demand to abolish it if they were true to their values and they understand what the fed does. Companies create actual value because they take inputs and combine them into something more valuable than the sum of the parts. That is from where all taxes and income derive

Mostly correct, but you failed to address the role of the treasury and the legitimacy of managing monetary policy.

If the teacher just shows up with scraps of paper, claiming they are dollars, the kids will rightly reject her scraps as worthless counterfeits. She must obtain recognized authority to introduce currency into the system. In our economy, that authority comes from the Treasury Department in the form of T Bills.

I also mention the legitimacy of monetary policy. Using your example, we have 10 kids, 10 pencils, and 10 dollars. But one of the kids chews a pencil and makes it worthless, another is an ambitious writer and consumes his pencil writing.

Now we have $10 chasing 8 pencils. Inflation is obvious, but more importantly we have insufficient material wealth to support the fiat currency floated. Monetary policy dictates that two of the dollars be removed from the economy to create equilibrium. Essentially, the stated wealth of the system must equal the material or real wealth of the system. Inflation, deflation, recession, and depression occur with economic equilibrium is lost.

Tommy is an industrious lad and produces 5 more pencils, now we have 13, in addition, 3 more children join the group. But with only 8 of the dollars available, the viability of dollars as currency is lost. To put the economy back into equilibrium, 5 more dollars must be added - so that the stated wealth in currency matches the phyical wealth in goods.

Over simplified, but this is the legitimacy of monetary policy.

 

[SwimExpert]

How would YOU solve the over-population issue, by war and pestilence, or by authoritarian planning?

By closing hospitals. If you're dumb enough to drink bleach, then do the gene pool a favor.













J/K, of course.

 

[kaz]

[

Right, I keep following economics and you keep listening to liberal lawyers who obviously know more about economics, I'm just whacked, aren't I?

As for the Fed, you are talking about nominal money growth, I am talking about real money or economic growth.

Say kids have $10 in pretend money that represents an economy of 10 identical pencils. The value of a pencil is obviously $1. Let's say the teacher enters the game with another $10 but no pencils. The additional money didn't increase the amount of pencils in the game, it created no economic value. It just cut the value of a pencil to 50 cents and she stole half the money the kids had because before they could have 10 pencils between them and she just took 5 of them for herself for doing nothing.

That is the Fed, it steals from the American people, it is a criminal organization. And the money it issues is a pure regressive tax. Both conservatives and liberals would demand to abolish it if they were true to their values and they understand what the fed does. Companies create actual value because they take inputs and combine them into something more valuable than the sum of the parts. That is from where all taxes and income derive

Mostly correct, but you failed to address the role of the treasury and the legitimacy of managing monetary policy.

If the teacher just shows up with scraps of paper, claiming they are dollars, the kids will rightly reject her scraps as worthless counterfeits. She must obtain recognized authority to introduce currency into the system. In our economy, that authority comes from the Treasury Department in the form of T Bills.

I also mention the legitimacy of monetary policy. Using your example, we have 10 kids, 10 pencils, and 10 dollars. But one of the kids chews a pencil and makes it worthless, another is an ambitious writer and consumes his pencil writing.

Now we have $10 chasing 8 pencils. Inflation is obvious, but more importantly we have insufficient material wealth to support the fiat currency floated. Monetary policy dictates that two of the dollars be removed from the economy to create equilibrium. Essentially, the stated wealth of the system must equal the material or real wealth of the system. Inflation, deflation, recession, and depression occur with economic equilibrium is lost.

Tommy is an industrious lad and produces 5 more pencils, now we have 13, in addition, 3 more children join the group. But with only 8 of the dollars available, the viability of dollars as currency is lost. To put the economy back into equilibrium, 5 more dollars must be added - so that the stated wealth in currency matches the phyical wealth in goods.

Over simplified, but this is the legitimacy of monetary policy.

I "failed to address" a lot of things. I was demonstrating one dynamic, how the Fed steals from the American people by printing money. Not physically printing money, but by issuing debt and controlling interest rates. I wasn't attempting to demonstrate everything they do. That's why I focused my example on that.

Yes, value is created and destroyed all the time. You realize when you talk about "monetary policy" you are referring to politicians controlling the economy. That only works if they make better decisions than free markets. Not only do they not, but they make decisions in their own interest, not the people's. You gave no example which showed otherwise. They are a criminal organization who should be abolished. Without them, the housing crash wouldn't have happened. It was them who flooded the market with free money to stoke the overheating engine

 

[Uncensored2008]

I "failed to address" a lot of things. I was demonstrating one dynamic, how the Fed steals from the American people by printing money. Not physically printing money, but by issuing debt and controlling interest rates. I wasn't attempting to demonstrate everything they do. That's why I focused my example on that.

Yes, value is created and destroyed all the time. You realize when you talk about "monetary policy" you are referring to politicians controlling the economy. That only works if they make better decisions than free markets. Not only do they not, but they make decisions in their own interest, not the people's. You gave no example which showed otherwise. They are a criminal organization who should be abolished. Without them, the housing crash wouldn't have happened. It was them who flooded the market with free money to stoke the overheating engine

I hate to see this devolve into yet another exercise in hating the fed.

In general. I agree that the Federal Reserve Board should be disbanded. The authority over Monetary policy rests with Congress, who is shirking their duty by pushing this off to the fed.

But these sorts of exercises are always followed by the utterly insane calls to prohibit fiat currency. Which is amusing in the day when three quarters of the money supply exists only as computerized chits.

 

[Roadrunner]

Yep my wife is in the services industry, she's an attorney.

That is traditionally termed a "professional job" not service. Same with accountants and doctors.

Accountants and attorneys are parasites.

Doctors do some good.

 

[kaz]

Yep my wife is in the services industry, she's an attorney.

That is traditionally termed a "professional job" not service. Same with accountants and doctors.

Clearly you're right that a lawyer is a professional job, but a lawyer is also a services job. Both statements are true. Professional jobs are a subset of services jobs. Businesses produce either products or services or a combination of those. Professional is a subset of service.

I'm not sure why only low end service jobs are being considered. Bank tellers are a tiny portion of service jobs. Financial services break into investment, corporate and corporate finance jobs, there is a lot of high end employment. Information technology has loads of high end service jobs. Energy services? Wow, loads of service jobs are in that industry. The travel industry. When there are resources available, we business people are clever buggers, and people are clearly a resource.

Who would have thought in the 80s that by now the Soviet Union would be gone or that the US would be on track to be the #1 energy producer and energy independent in 2015? The economy always finds a way. And again, that's not just wishful thinking, available hands are a resource. I'm a business guy. I know how good we are at what we do in American Management. The only thing destroying us are politicians who are disincenting work and punishing achievers. That is what to focus on stopping

 

[kaz]

Yep my wife is in the services industry, she's an attorney.

That is traditionally termed a "professional job" not service. Same with accountants and doctors.

Accountants and attorneys are parasites.

Doctors do some good.

Lawyers I agree. Certainly tax accountants are parasites. However, businesses do need accountants to help us count the bodies on the battlefield to help adjust our strategy for the next campaign

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

In general. I agree that the Federal Reserve Board should be disbanded. The authority over Monetary policy rests with Congress, who is shirking their duty by pushing this off to the fed.

Folks in Congress know nothing about monetary policy or rocket science and are controlled by electorate which knows even less. Congress in control would mean instant world wide depression.

Fed PH.D's just did brilliant job preventing depression and are light years ahead of Great Depression Federal Reserve. This is no time to abandon them when they seemingly have learned everything about central banking.

 

[georgephillip]

History has well proven that to be a complete disaster. Communism is the fast path to failure.

How are you connecting the dots between a guaranteed annual wage and communism?
"communism
[kom-yuh-niz-uh m]
Spell Syllables

• Examples
• Word Origin

noun
1.
a theory or system of social organization based on the holding of allproperty in common, actual ownership being ascribed to thecommunity as a whole or to the state."

Communism Define Communism at Dictionary.com

 

[Freemason9]

This is hugely important economic issue, and the answer will be transformative.

One way to consider this--when the technology emerges to allow trucks to move from one destination to another without drivers, be assured that the trucking companies will do just that. What happens, then, to the drivers as they all lose their jobs? Will we attempt to appease them through subsistance living based upon food stamps and housing support?

And (perhaps more importantly) how does the economy adjust to that huge drop in spendable incomes?

In other words, where will the money come from that the economy depends upon for consumer spending? Will we move back to feudalism?

All money comes from companies making a profit. Profit is the new money that grows our economy, companies creating value. Think about it, taxes, income, investments, it is all derived from evil, evil profit. Makes you sick, doesn't it?

You have a weird grasp of economics. In the federal reserve system, all money comes from debt creation. New debt is issued on the belief that tomorrow's economy will be wealthier than today's economy, and that has been true for the most part. We need a larger money supply to reflect more value in the economy.

All profit comes from labor. All of it. The central issue in the future will be based upon why labor doesn't receive adequate compensation from its efforts.

"Profit" is not an economic imperative, but INCOME certainly is. At the base, all economic activity is based upon compensation for labor. "Profit" is whatever is retained by businesses AFTER labor is compensated.

You kinda flunked Econ didntcha?

Perhaps you might be more specific, rather than simply hurling rightwing insults. Do you dispute the fundamental role of labor (human effort) in creation of wealth?

 

[Freemason9]

You have a weird grasp of economics. In the federal reserve system, all money comes from debt creation. New debt is issued on the belief that tomorrow's economy will be wealthier than today's economy, and that has been true for the most part. We need a larger money supply to reflect more value in the economy.

All profit comes from labor. All of it. The central issue in the future will be based upon why labor doesn't receive adequate compensation from its efforts.

"Profit" is not an economic imperative, but INCOME certainly is. At the base, all economic activity is based upon compensation for labor. "Profit" is whatever is retained by businesses AFTER labor is compensated.

I have no idea what leftist hate site you picked this idiocy up from, but it bears no resemblance to fact. You have no idea how the federal reserve system works nor even it's purpose.

You should take an introduction to economics class at the local community college - you have not so much as a clue what you are talking about.

Your response is similar to Rabbi's--insulting, but avoiding specifics. Please enlighten us all with your reasoned analysis.

 

[Syriusly]

The world is changing. This is a fact that no one can deny. Not only have electronic systems allowed outsourcing and offshoring, but advances in automation are making the need for human workers obsolete in many cases.

Consider this;

{By 2020, a considerably smaller proportion of the labor force will hold full-time jobs. Organizations will increasingly rely on contract employees and part-timers to get the work done, giving the organization greater flexibility. From the employee’s standpoint, it will mean greater individual control of the employee’s future rather than being dependent on a single employer.

Future workers will be more like outside consultants than full-time employees. Assignments will be temporary. They might last a few weeks or a few years, but the presumption is—on the part of both workers and employers—that the relationship will not become permanent. As such, you will find yourself consistently working on new projects with a different group of coworkers.} - International Journal of Management

America and the world have used the concept of a job as the means of wealth distribution. I posit that this method is failing, that as the number of tasks performed by humans decreases, the method of distribution will falter. An ever growing segment of the population will not be needed for production. What does a modern society do with these people? How do these people earn a living? If smart machines do the bulk of the labor, how do we view ownership?

Thoughts?

Excellent thread- excellent post- excellent question.

From the beginning of the industrial revolution there are have been labor upheavals.

What I think is happening right now has a lot to do with an imbalance of power between capital and labor, and with the ability to relocate business to almost anywhere in the world with a more favorable environment for business's.

This is likely to continue. I don't have any answers to that at the moment.

 

[The Rabbi]

This is hugely important economic issue, and the answer will be transformative.

One way to consider this--when the technology emerges to allow trucks to move from one destination to another without drivers, be assured that the trucking companies will do just that. What happens, then, to the drivers as they all lose their jobs? Will we attempt to appease them through subsistance living based upon food stamps and housing support?

And (perhaps more importantly) how does the economy adjust to that huge drop in spendable incomes?

In other words, where will the money come from that the economy depends upon for consumer spending? Will we move back to feudalism?

All money comes from companies making a profit. Profit is the new money that grows our economy, companies creating value. Think about it, taxes, income, investments, it is all derived from evil, evil profit. Makes you sick, doesn't it?

You have a weird grasp of economics. In the federal reserve system, all money comes from debt creation. New debt is issued on the belief that tomorrow's economy will be wealthier than today's economy, and that has been true for the most part. We need a larger money supply to reflect more value in the economy.

All profit comes from labor. All of it. The central issue in the future will be based upon why labor doesn't receive adequate compensation from its efforts.

"Profit" is not an economic imperative, but INCOME certainly is. At the base, all economic activity is based upon compensation for labor. "Profit" is whatever is retained by businesses AFTER labor is compensated.

You kinda flunked Econ didntcha?

Perhaps you might be more specific, rather than simply hurling rightwing insults. Do you dispute the fundamental role of labor (human effort) in creation of wealth?

That's a clown question, bro.