Automation is collapsing our economy

Because of the DoD's costly stupidity:

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with the 14+ Billion already spent on high tech untested systems and 3+ Billion per ship construction and installed equipment cost that is 8 Billion dollars each.

It makes no difference that it has a low radar cross section for its planned use in the S. China Sea. Any of more than the 5,000 Chinese fishing boats there with the Chinese version of GPS and tell where it is with accuracy error about 1/4 of the D-1000's length. China has about 10 times more subs than US does and even if the DDG 1000 can kill 15 or so of their torpedoes and a few subs, it will not survive, if China wants it sunk.

 

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more useless waste (like in post 61):

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Tower was to test GenCorp engine of a 2010 canceled space program.

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Completing the so-called A-3 tower will cost $57 million more, according to the agency’s inspector general. The agency also plans to maintain it, which will run about $840,000 annually, according to Karen Northon, a NASA spokeswoman.

Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran, then the ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee, also pushed NASA to complete the test stand. Club for Growth, a Washington-based group that supports spending cuts and backs a challenger to Cochran in this year’s Republican primary, called the A-3 funding “an excellent example of why so many people are fed up with Washington.”

The tower is made of millions of pounds of steel -- strong enough to hold liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen tanks weighing as much as 320,000 pounds apiece. The stand also includes chemical steam-generator units that would be used to help simulate the engine’s ability to power a rocket to altitudes up to 100,000 feet.
The "see the graphic" only works at source, but this part of the text in graphic will copy:
NASA’s Defunct Project Survives on Mississippi Pork: NASA will complete a $350 million tower to test rocket engines for a program that was canceled in 2010. The A-3 test stand will be finished early this year at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.
Its funding survived thanks to:
Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican from that state who supported the test stand’s completion even though NASA doesn’t need it.

A Billy T question: Are either or both the representative part of the "tea party" hypocrites wanting to reduce government waste (but not in Old Miss)?

 

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In part because of falling real wages:

Productivity not growing as fast as population means everyone’s “slice of equally divided pie” is growing smaller, but main problem of most is the well off are getting many times more than an “equable slice”.

I'm not suggesting the “pie” should be equally divided, but the division is now so unequal that productivity is falling – note bold part of text quoted.
This is another reason why raising the minimum wage in US is probably a good idea for ALL.

BTW "ft" = Financial Times (of London) - one of the world's most respected financial newspapers. - The equal or better than the WSJ. You can read up to 8 articles/ month for free if registered.

 

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Pentagon spends $8.5 TRILLION - has no account of what it spent it on.

 

Billy, please don't spam my thread with off-topic posts.

 

Which post(s) are you thinking is off thread?

Do you think US military & NASA taking dollars out of the civilian economy, especially on total usless projects that create nothing in the market place for sale, and cost more than the 16 next defense department combined is not harmful? (How does it differ from paying 100 men to did a pit and next day 100 to fill it in again?) You know US DoD budget could be cut in half and still be more than number 2 (China)? Also note China's DoD cost is mainly man power and calling them the "people's libration ARMY" is QUITE A DISTORTION. They are to a large extent a mobile assistance force that copes with people displace by China's frequent floods, earthquakes and civil disturbances. If only the cost of their drills with weapons, etc. were counted then the US DoD budget is more than three times greater than No. 2's

DoD funds quite often are not even spent in the USA due to local purchasing in Germany, and 30 other countries with permanent bases or needless (actuall worse than needless - damaging to US interest) wars. Saddam was not a nice man, made many palaces, and abused innocent people, but did not tolerate any other political groups - that included Al Quada. Under him Iraq was the most liberal Moslem country - women could travel at night alone, did not need to cover heads, oil mney was used to fill pubic food depots, build schools, which girls attended. etc.

Now, as I predicted prior to the GWB invasion, the Iraq war has been a great victory to Iran and threat to Turkey (Kurdistan does exist, exist in all but name and UN recognition - they sign the oil contract and are prospering out of the control of Bagdad) and Al Quada is the effective government (working with local tribal leaders) of more than half the land. The Southern part under the Shiite government is effectively the "Autonomous Northern Provence" of Iran, the true winner of the Iraq war - all as I predicted.

The prediction was easy to make as I understood; But GWB et. al. did not, that Iraq (and many Moslem countries) are not real countries but just lines drawn on a map by the British Foreign Office about 100 years ago.* The people's first loyaiity is to their extended family, which is typically more than 100 people as normal one marries a 2nd or even a 1st cousin. The second loyality is to there version of Islam in a conflict more than 1000 years old. If they have any "3d level loyality" to the "nation" west calls Iraq, it is only because the Iraq government is paying their salary!

I'll stop with this defense of my posts as being on thread, but just note that NASA does not even want the test tower discussed in post 62, the two congress men from Texas are forcing on them. - Just one of many dozens of "bridges to nowhere." the tax payers buy in "welfare for business" that makes jobs and great profits for the usually already rich owners of stocks.

*One should note a fact few in US know. I.e. that Kuwait was originally part of Iraq (look on any map 60 or more years old); but after the huge oil reserves in that "greater Iraq" were learned, the BFO re drew the lines and declared Kuwait a separate nation. Saddam was like Lincoln, just trying to re-unite his country after the Southern part declared itself an independent nation, but unlike the Confederacy, US under first Bush president drove him out of Kuwait, but that Bush, unlike his son GWB, was intelligent and wanted Saddam to keep Iraq as it was (Al Quada free). I. e. the "Iraq war" was "worse than useless" even if no lives or treasure had been wasted.

 

All of them, unless your arguing that automation is not the underlying problem to are economy.

 

I asked for a specific example. Your reply implies the only reason for the coming collapse is automation. Clearly not the case as automation in some countries is making them prospers (Foxcom is installing 100,000 production line robots to lower cost of making iPads etc. and improve quality control.) and doing no damage to others.

My prediction of run on dollar about 7 years ago was based on many factors (at least a dozen) but did not include automation. Mainly the mass of baby boomers (I knew back then) would be switching from being the greatest class of tax payers in their peak earing years to collectors of Social Security at 10,000 per day rate now. The other main reason was that GWB made foolish unneeded wars, we will be paying for long after he is dead and gave tax relief to the already rich. - A disaster for an economy that was 2/3 based on Joe American buying.

Of course with increased automation and the tax burden shifted Joe's salaries real purchasing power has been declining, nearly a decade now, so corporation now get much more of the sales from Asia. There are too few good jobs being created - 2/3 or more are part time/ Big Mac/ job and those dropping out of the work force are why the unemployment rate has fallen to 6.7% not new job creation. The labor force "participation rate" is lower than it has been for decades. Certainly automatic is part of the US's problem but poor education with local funding of schools is more of a problem - US workers can't run complex automated factories so they are run in Asia etc. where education of the masses is better, at least in math and sciences.

It is impossible to know what will be the trigger of US's economic collapse. Failure in Congress is a good bet. Hell, even the fact that Comex's vaults will hold no deliverable gold in less than 85 days at the present rate of removal could be. (80+% of all they held was taken out in 2013 - most of it finding its way to Asia.) China announcing gold backing of its bonds could be the reason dollar collapses - They could pay higher interest rates on them too, and quickly become the world's preferred reserve currency - China is already the world's largest trading nation and trade deficits increasingly settle in Yuan rather than dollars.

If I had to name one cause of the "underlying economic problem" it would be the local funding of schools - good teachers will not work for less pay and greater chance of being mugged there so US has a prison polulation many times greater percent than any nation that educates ALL well and the cost of keeping each in prison is greater than tuition to an Ivy League college! Automation and aging populations are common problems to many nations. -Thus do not put US at any disadvantage - World's worse mass education of all advanced nations, however, does.

 

No, not the only, but it is presently or will become the biggest. Government misshandling of financing has been around for centuries, and we as a civilization have managed to keep on going. The present level of automation on the other hand is something new, and without massive social change, not just the USA but every developed and by domino effect undeveloped nation will suffer greatly. This is a global problem, not just the US and beyond your obsessive predictions for the US. China for example won't be able to rise their standard of living if the increase in the cost of human labor exceeds the cost of robotic labor, and certainly china's growth is harmed and will further be harmed by the present near-stagnant consumption of developed nations because of automation. Once china is developed enough they will be in the same hell as developed nations with increased automation meaning at best utter economic stagnation as jobs lose, wage reduction, deflation, consumption stagnation, counterbalance production efficiency: The next japan.

 

As nations become more automated, then there's more free time for people to enjoy. Even now, the fact that you can read and don't have to scrounge around looking for food is a sign of prosperity derived from some level of automation. If automation continues, then there should come a day when no one has to work - or only works for the fun of it. This IS a massive social change - but so was moving 90% of people off farms and into cities. IMO the social reorganization will be towards anarchy. This is going to happen. The days of Nation States are numbered. Once Nation States are eradicated, and people are free to move anywhere they can provide value, then the trick will be figuring out how to value goods and services and ensuring there are sound units to value things and ideas with.

 

Our Economy is collapsing because of...

THIS

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"Behold my display of the 2013 Federal Register. It contains over 80,000 pages of new rules, regulations, and notices all written and passed by unelected bureaucrats. [Oh, that little itsy bitsy] stack of papers on top of the display [that you probably didn't even notice, those] are the laws passed by elected members of Congress and signed into law by the president."

Who in their right mind would want to even attempt to start up a business and *gasp* hire other people to serve the public through voluntary free-trade?
Not many.
Not many at all.

Automation only frees people from wasting their time - allowing them to provide a different service or create a higher-end good. BUT, this is the thing, we MUST live in a FREE society so that said person can leave their job as a Cog and go work as a service provider somewhere else. I imagine there'd be a lot of work in the entertainment industry - as well as healthcare if it were ever a free market.

The research I conduct is never going to be totally automated - yet I'm in perpetual need of workers. Of course they'd need 4-5 years of preliminary training, but so what? There's certainly a LOT of medical research that needs to be conducted. As these low-end jobs disappear, where are the workers for my field? I'll tell you where - driving taxis. No shit. Driving taxis. IMO this can only happen because 50% of our economy is run by the State and it only really knows one thing: War.
War on Cancer (failed).
War on Drugs (failed)
War on Poverty (failed)
War on Literacy (failed)
War on Terror (failed)
War on Privacy... winning, but will ultimately fail.

Only in an insane asylum can hundreds of thousands of perfectly capable students spend tens of thousands of hours in preparation to sell services in the healthcare field, only to be turned away by the magic test - never to be allowed to offer their services in the hyper-regulated markets**. While at the exact same time everyone is complaining about the price of these services. Well duhhh.... restrict the supply of a service and price goes up. Regulate competition out of the market - the price goes up. THIS is the reason why our economy is upside down. It's called rent-seeking and until these 80,000 pages of rent-seeking regulations are burned (along with most bureaucrats) the economy isn't turning around.

At the turn of the century if you asked an American what their dream was - it was to open a business. THIS made our nation prosperous. Everyone was working hard to safe up some money and open a business. Kind of like the Chinese of today. Maybe we'll have to sink to 3rd world nation status before we learn this lesson again. Let's hope not.

 

That was a hypothesis, in actuality though the process has reversed in recent decades where now working hours are increasing, and income earned per hour of work is decreasing.

Yes but the transition to that day will require us giving up on the concept of people "earning a living", that means they will need to get money by some other means (or we give up on the concept of money altogether!), calling this a massive social change is likely an understatement! Social changes in general are times of great strife and revolution and we are talking about likely needing to implement a totally new kind of economic system, in this century (or kill off a vast amount of the human race due to obsolescence and poverty).

Again people will be able to provide very little if any "value", as is more and more people are having to compete against ever cheaper and better automated labor, potentially the day will come when machines can do everything people can, without food, water, or complaint. People would have no value other then as consumers (assuming we don't create machines to consume, which would be as retarded as having androids mash sandwiches into their face, but would completely remove humans from having any purpose what so ever) but how can people consume if they have no income from providing "value" in labor that now obsolete.

 

In a properly functioning economy as productivity increases, people become more prosperous. They should be working LESS and having more. 80 years ago a single father could raise a family of 5 on a single income, buy all the amenities of a middle class family, and live a decent life. 80 years later you're lucky to even have a family - and if so it'll be 1, maybe 2 children; and it will require both the mother and father working (which, incidentally, physically damages the children as they are raised in daycare center - seriously, the evidence suggests that the somatosensory cortex doesn't develop properly).

How can it be that we are much much much more productive and yet be less prosperous? It's not possible to be LESS prosperous AND be more productive - UNLESS, the money you use to value things in is unsound.

Then it is possible - easily possible, simple actually. Just print up more money and steal from each and every transaction made, across the world. With that kind of power, you could run up $8.5 trillion dollar in unaccountable war spending (and still lose the wars). If the money you use is unsound, then any gains in productivity can be stolen from you by the people who control the money you value everything in. Then there's the role the Government plays in all this. A HUGE part. Some people estimate the US Government makes up 50% of the economy not to mention it regulates all aspects of the economy. Of course we're not seeing the fruits of our labor - much of it goes to running that monstrosity.

The Government also runs public schools - these perversely 'teach' hundreds of thousands of children to sell labor - thus over supplying the market with labor and driving down the price of labor hours. Many teachers in the US were the ones who didn't really do all that well in University and so they went into the safety of public service. They're the last type of person you'd want teaching your child to be prepared for the coming so-called New Economy.

Anyway, the government is a huge part of the problem - to say the least.


Imagine if you had a 3D printer that sat in your house, solar power energy, and could make most anything you wanted in terms of electronics, shoes, clothes - etc. And when done, you just put it back into the machine to be recycled. Surely you can't say you'd be LESS prosperous. I think of robotics (or Chinese factories) like this 3D printer. You can not become less prosperous with such a machine.




Here's what BofA Michael Hartnett says, "we are long robots, and short human beings."

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Then let's address the issue of 'money'.

With robots doing a lot of the low skilled work, this leaves people a lot more free time. Therefor they can do other things (like vacationing) or offer other services like personalized education per child, etc... This is only possible when we have sound money and a deregulated market that allows free people to freely value and trade with one another.

What do you mean people will have no value other than as consumers and how is that different from now? Why is selling labor something more valuable than working as a trainer or educator or entertainer?

No one makes their own shoes any longer in the USA, this doesn't devalue people - the shoe makers just go on and do something other than making shoes.

IF we got to a day where it was 100% vacation time, then that's great. And, I'm sure, one day we will.

 

They should be, but they are not.

We had government for centuries, beat off the nazi with government, landed on the moon with government, had some of are best growth years with government. Why is government suddenly the problem now? Is it a function of lack of adaptability, well that a human problem, society will need to adapt and government is a component of society, we may very well need a totally new kind of government for a future in which most if not all people are obsolete as producers of anything of value. But that is a bridge to be crossed later, now I'm asking the question is automation is the causative factor for all of this, we have had government corrupt, government girth and government interference for centuries now and been relatively stable, but make more and more people obsolete and the side-effects to government, to society could be devastating. The point here is that government ills is just part of the wood, the fire is progresses its self.

We are long ways from a 3D printer that can do all of that, I would say we would need T1000 level nanites to make all that.

What about those that don't own such a machine? All factories would be obsolete with such star trak replicators as you describe available, anyone who does not own or have access to a replicator would have no means of getting ANYTHING other then begging people that own replicates, or doing services for them, and what services could be done for people that own replicators if they can replicate a 'servant' that does ANYTHING for them?

I've already cited work like this, already noted US manufacturing is at a all time hire, but an all time low in employment (and lowering!). Ideally all the productive capacity for such few workers would have meant we all live prosperous lives and barely work at all and dedicate ourselves to the arts or something, Keynes in is 1930 essay "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren" spelled it all out but got it horrible wrong. See the money from all this productive capacity is not being distributed to everyone, hence why we don't live the utopian life he imagined but are working hard and hard for less, every year. All the money only goes to the owners of that productive capacity, why the wealth gap is so large today. How do we equalize that? Well for starters we need to raise the minimum wage, forcibly drop working weeks from 40 to 30 and even lower hours a week, we need to get everyone invested in stock, owning shares of industry, we need to tax the rich more, tax companies based on their automation level, etc, etc, all this requires government, lot of it, of course I mean a government working for the people, of the people, by the people, and not for rich lobbist as it presently is, that will only lead to further social divide between the rich and poor until technology allows the rich to purchase kill bots and kill off the "free-loaders" once and for all.

Why would I want a human teacher when I could get an android one that will teach my child better (and not molest my child behind my back)? Your simply failing to imagine the possibilities of a UNIVERSAL DOER, there would be nothing, NOTHING the doer can't do that a human can't, and likely nothing a human could do better. We would in fact need to REGULATE what humans can do and doers cannot do. For example we would need to say "Doers are forbidden from making art" because they would be able to make art, pump it out day and night without sleep or art school or "inspiration" other then random number generators and analog noise. Take for example dubstep, vocaloids, and CGI movies of today. Disney more recent movie "Frozen" utilized fabric collision events for the clothing of its character (hair collision was present in their last movie, 'Tangled') before animators had to by hand and frame by frame move the fabric about, but now computers do the job, meaning less animators are needed. Someday perhaps a Strong AI and a lot of graphic processors could write up a plot, create characters, paint backdrops, animate them completely, distribute the movie, etc, all on its own, thousands of artist useless or having to compete against machines! So we would need to regulate and say that art is only for people, say that a minimum of X people are needed per movie or art work, etc, etc, even go back to hand drawn and stop-motion animation (which honestly I love). And that is just art, everything and anything humans do would need to be considered for regulation, toilet cleaning, give it to the machines, basket weaving, aaah humans, plastic chair printing, duh machines, Operas, humans, etc, etc. Either that or we give up rights to being productive in any way.

An andriod trainer is going to be there for me 24/7, never judging, always coaching, why would I want a human one?
An andriod educator knows more, teaches better, never get frustrated and is there 24/7, why would I want a human one?
A gynoid 'entertainer' I can fuck every which way, her butt never sags, her tits you can bounce a dick off, she never get diseases, she can play any instruement, dance to any song, sing it, oh and she even makes sandwich on the demand "bitch get me a sandwich!" why would I want a human 'entertainer'?

Back to my very first sentence of my first post on this thread. The anti-luddite argument, I given multiple reasons why this can't hold true, but I don't think I cover the fact that here is not an infinite number of things we can do and frankly of that only a tiny percentage of things people want to do. Why do you think we are at 80% service sector economy today? do you think all those people like having jobs like cashier and truck driver? Why do we not have more artist and hobbyist living the good life, because demand for those things are limited, a horrible effect was noted by economist Lawrence H. Summers in his lecture "Economic Possibilities for Our Children" (A successor to Keynes 1930 essay) that unlike things like chairs and shoes and pizza the cost for services like musician have not dropped in adjusted dollars, meaning they cost more today then they did 100 years ago! Most people today are satisfied with recordings, with electronic art in which one DJ can do the work of a whole orchestra, actual live musicians cost a lot now, either that or they live on the streets, making nothing! In the past if you could play a instrument you had a good chance of decent employment in say 19 century Britain, today only a tiny fraction of very pretty artist actually 'make it' most of the rest are on the street corner.

If we get to that day we would need to pay people just for living, do you relies how dramatic a difference in social values that would require?

 

Well, I lost my original reply. But, let's try this.

Do you agree that in a 'properly' functioning normal economy that increases in productivity through automation reduce the time needed to spend at work and make people in said society more prosperous?

Suppose there were 10 people. They all spend all day fishing by hand. One day one of them invents a 'net'. He can capture in one hour what it took all day to do prior. In 4 hours he has enough excess fish to put away (salted) as savings. Now the other people have a choice, they can trade something for a fish or keep fishing by hand. If they trade with him, this means each of them will have more free time to develop a good or service he (or one of the others) would like. Do we agree putting people OUT of a job, in this instance, is a good thing? It allows for specialization and division of labor. Now no one has to fish. Some can make clothing. Some can sing. Some can grow fruit. Etc.... The keys to this little society are: private property rights, sound money, law and the freedom to trade with one another within the law.

Also, I'd just add that you can not discount the serious effect the central bank and the government have on the economy. They are destroying our society (IMO).

 

Yes, ideally, but reality has a way of injecting unknown-unknown variables that can turn any proper function into a cancer.

Why were they not destroying are economy centuries ago?

 

If automation leads to prosperity in a free market, then perhaps the problem is that we don't have a free market? Perhaps unknown-unknown variables are more likely to cause a problem in a slow cumbersome hyper-regulated rent-seeking unfree-market, while these same variables are likely to be sources of new profit in a free market with sound money.

Well, for one thing they had sound money not fiat currency. Another is that they DID destroy economies centuries ago. History is littered with examples of economies being destroyed (and civilizations - see Roma, see China) through unsound currency. England used the sterling for centuries and was extremely free-market orientated. As a matter of fact, the English of 1700s were much more free-market than we are today. And the Romans of 2200 years ago were pretty much the definition of free-market.

A prosperous society is derived from: private property rights, law, sound money and free-trade (freedom). In our society we tax people a transaction on their labor (this is a violation of the body and therefore violates private property rights). We passed an amendment to the US Constitution making income tax (in effect taxing labor) - thus the law has deviated from it's original intent to protect private property (starting with the body). Unsound law led to regulations and these removes free participation of interaction and so we do not have anything near free markets. Lastly, we use fiat money as opposed to a free-market derived money (hence the need for income tax paid in this fiat in this currency). Profit can no longer function properly and most so-called profit is in actually rent-seeking activities.

Profit plays such an important role in a free-market, it tells you information from the farthest reaches of the world. Whether a farmer was getting along with his wife and did work that day. The Weather. Vacation time. All sorts of things. And removing it led to the deaths of 100s of millions of people across three continents. Also, free market profit is not the same as rent-seeking (most so-called 'profit' today is actually rent seeking) and thus most people hate the idea of 'profit' because they see rent-seeking and know intuitively this is not fair. Profit only functions when money is sound. Ours isn't. This then leads to all sorts of distortions in the market and changes (I'd say poisons) society itself.

IMO automation and the production gains made through automation are the only things holding this society together. When those come to an end, IMO so does our illusionary 'economy' and this monetary system will too. Which is a good thing.

 

Oh you meant a "free market", oh no it will not lead to prosperity in the long run as I've explained repeatly. As long as the owners of said automation have not laws or regulations requiring them to give some of their profit to the non-owners then no, automation in a market that free will lead to collapse: the poor will eventually no longer be able to afford products because they have no income because their labor is valueless when machines can do everything they can faster, better and cheaper. Regulations have to be implement to "spread the wealth" because naturally the rich are inclined to hord profit for themselves, destabilizing society and leading to an exterminism future.

The fact that money is now imaginary is certainly wood to the fire, but the economy needs to be destabilized *by something* for this fact to result in complete collapse of currency, imaginary money and economies operating on it remain functional very well as long as things are good.

This are all assumptions, grossly simplistic ones in fact.

If we don't tax the rich so that one way another their profit is shared with the poor, prosperity as we know it will end. If automation continues to progress only people that own automated capital will prosper, everyone else will become profoundly impoverished. Automation is not holding society together frankly if there was no progress we could continue (assuming resource hold, which they won't) for some time with imaginary money, with income taxes as is, etc, etc, but change, progress, the ever decreasing value of human labor is the most fundemental de-stablizer of our economy and society. If your arguing we would be better of if money was not imaginary, sure maybe, but no progress would still crush society. Once progress was great back when demand could grow to match productive capacity, we could hire near everyone and they would produce more and more as automation got better, making more money to buy more products, but now demand's growth is slowing (thankfully before we hit physical limits) now more automation means firing people, we can't build more factories with fewer better paid workers like before because there is not enough demand for more things, demand stagnates more as people make less and buy less, and the whole economy stagnates or enters cycles of recession and boom and bust with no actual progress in prosperity (except for the really wealthy), eventually as human labor become completely replaceable the economy will collapse completely. All of this has nothing to do what so ever with money now lacking a (gold) standard or all the hundred of trillions invested in imaginary capitial. Those things will merely hasten the collapse.

 

I'm sorry if I'm missing something, but this doesn't make any sense.

1) If the poor are to too poor to buy from the factory owner, then the owner begins to also lose money, shutters her factories AND she become poor too, not rich. Even if she had money saved, if there are no businesses to buy from, what good is your money in this society?

2) Also, you mention the rich hoard money. AND? In a free market the poor can create their own money and use this money to trade. Money is there to make trade easier and to act as savings. At any point the poor can trade with one another using a new money or/or currency of their choice and/or creation. Also, rich people generally don't hoard money, they invest it or loan it.

3) I fail to see how automation is going to do anything to harm the people in this society?

Lets suppose the owner is of a cheese factory and 40% of people in town work making cheese. Slowly year over year cheese making is automated. All that happens is these people leave the factory and do something else. If there comes a day when cheese is 100% automated - good, now those people can do other things (maybe even make high-end cheese as 100% automated cheese may taste as shit as most Americans cheeses do taste :shrug

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. The main thing is that the money these people made and saved was sound savings so they can invest in opening their own businesses. Also, the people must be free to trade with one another - EVEN cheese (in today's markets the first 'regulation' the cheese factory owner would make sure got through CONgress would be to prevent others from making cheese).**

How on earth do you come to the conclusion that society collapses with automation?!? I come to the exact opposite conclusion.


Lastly, private property rights (self ownership), law, sound money and free-markets are anything but simple concepts. These are the bases of prosperity and civilization.
- BUT, I have mentioned many times that raising children peacefully (no spanking or yelling) and logically, is important towards creating a prosperous society. However, this is covered within private property rights.
- I also mention how public schools are over-producing workers which is lowering the price of labor hours due to over supply. But, this is covered in free markets (IOWs we need to deregulate markets to allow people NOT to be workers and we need to privatize schools to prevent homogenisation of children's skills. Education needs to focus on the child as an individual, not the State sausage cog-factory we have today).

 

In today's hyper regulated markets, I doubt many (if not most) of the factories built in the early 1900s would have ever been developed.

If you want people to create new jobs for themselves as they are automated out of factory and low-skill work, then you NEED to deregulate the markets and you need to allow them to use money to trade with one another (eliminate income tax). Law and self ownership are also axiomatic towards any form of civilization.

It's going to be a LONG time before 'everything' could be automated. We WANT this automation. But to allow for people to continue to trade with one another while automation removes them from their jobs - then you need free markets. Because no one knows what people will want in the future. Only the free markets will bring about the goods and services unknown unknowns of the future

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Another 80,000 new regulations this year alone. All of which written by industries that are being regulated. IOWs, most of this is rent-seeking.