Business news summarized a MarketWatch article thusly: "One reason growth is not faster is because technology is helping customers more than companies." As a technocrat, I thought that was the whole idea.
"Two roads diverged," Robert Frost wrote in what is perhaps the most popular poem of all time, "The Road Not Taken." Frost's opening words keep playing in my head every time an economic indicator is released, a global macro forecast is revised, or financial markets take a tumble. In all cases, the bulls and the bears find enough ammunition to support their diametrically opposed views on the U.S. economy.
Rarely have two roads diverged so dramatically for so long. It took six years for mainstream economists to come around to the notion that no, this is not your grandfather's economy; and no, real economic growth isn't going to accelerate to 3% next year, the perennial forecast. Trend economic growth of 3% or 4% is a thing of the past, constrained as it is right now by anemic productivity and labor-force growth.
Even the 2.1% average growth [in] real gross domestic product since the Great Recession ended in June 2009 is a source of controversy. The economic bulls maintain that the price of information technology is being overstated, which means real GDP and productivity growth are being understated. For this group, the low level of both jobless claims and the unemployment rate is telling the true story of a robust economy that isn't being captured by the statisticians.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @02:46AM
In the long run, making programs free is a step toward the postscarcity world, where nobody will have to work very hard just to make a living. People will be free to devote themselves to activities that are fun, such as programming, after spending the necessary ten hours a week on required tasks such as legislation, family counseling, robot repair and asteroid prospecting. There will be no need to be able to make a living from programming.
We have already greatly reduced the amount of work that the whole society must do for its actual productivity, but only a little of this has translated itself into leisure for workers because much nonproductive activity is required to accompany productive activity. The main causes of this are bureaucracy and isometric struggles against competition. Free software will greatly reduce these drains in the area of software production. We must do this, in order for technical gains in productivity to translate into less work for us.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by jmorris on Sunday May 01 2016, @02:55AM
Yea, lets blame technology for the Great Recession and Japan's Lost Generation coming to America. Yea, thats the ticket.
It isn't Bernanke and Yellen's helicopter money. It isn't almost $20T in Federal debt, who the hell really knows how much off the ledger debt Social Security and Medicare are going to cost, the trillions more in State pension unfunded liabilities. It isn't Dodd/Frank and the Fed making banks stop lending and just play more games with passing around the little pieces of paper while remaining "too big to fail." It isn't Obama breaking faith in corporate bonds with the GM bailout. It isn't the highest corporate taxes in the 1st world. And of course it can't be the endless stream of below minimum wage off the books labor flowing in to depress wages while raising the minimum legal wage to assure as many Americans as possible are out of the labor force and helping to crash the welfare state, Cloward / Piven is a right wing conspiracy theory... published in a real journal. It isn't Obamacare pushing employers to stay under the fifty employer limit and hold as many people to part time as possible. Nope, it can't be any of that because it wouldn't fit the Narrative. Tech, yup, safe to blame that. Hell maybe the government can regulate that industry until it too stops moving.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:03AM
You're saying that all the "economists" have lied to us for the past 50 years? Imagine that!
(Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:17AM
I'd say since Keynes at least. I don't really count Marx as an economist now that I'm actually reading him. Asshole reads like he would have fit in at Huffingpaint. Now I realize why every Prog is a troll, they are emulating their Great Founder. But Keynes seems to have been really trying to do economics... poorly.
But not all economists have lied to us, only the ones with the ability to have their ideas widely disseminated in the Prog controlled mass media and listened to in the halls of power. Plenty have warned us and been ignored. Hayek, Mises, Friedman, Sowell, Laffer, etc. all sounded the alarm. Greenspan is the guy I want to have a chat with in Hell, that butthole was once a disciple of Ayn Rand and still helped the Fed ruin the world. He had to know what he was doing was wrong. Why?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 01 2016, @05:10AM
Marx's problem is he's a natural-born critic. That is to say, while he's worth listening to as to where the problem is, God help you if you turn to him for a solution.
The problem at the bottom of all this is human nature. Capitalism is a classic positive feedback loop; left unchecked, power goes to power, money to money, privilege to privilege, etc., at an ever-accelerating rate. In this, Marx is correct that such a system cannot sustain itself, not least because it completely ignores the fucking laws of thermodynamics with its implicit assumption of infinite growth.
Thing is, though, that's human nature. His Communism is completely unworkable for that exact reason: humans do not work that way, period, end of story. Marx commits the same mistake the laissez-faire types do but in the other direction, and BOTH of them are incredibly naive about how humans work.
So what are we to do? I'd say have a graded system for class of goods and services, wherein the more basic and survival-essential something is the less the forces of the woefully-misnamed "free market" should have a say in it. We should already be in post-scarcity in a big way, and only aren't essentially because a bunch of perverted Calvinists (like you, Morris) would rather choke on Satan's schlong than see someone "get something they don't deserve."
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Troll) by jmorris on Sunday May 01 2016, @05:41AM
Where to start with Marx's errors... such a target rich environment it is amazing so many folks were blind enough to follow him into chaos and fire... murdering a hundred million or so and still counting in his name.
His first mistake is his Labor Theory of Value. Once you translate his Marx speak back to English he is saying that the product of a hundred socially useful hours of general labor in a diamond mine has the exact same exchange value as the same labor mining coal or loading horse crap. Nobody had a problem with that?
His next problem was the one you suffer from, looking at 19th century England and attempting to extrapolate to a universal set of laws without stopping to consider that the conditions at that time had been rapidly changing up to his time and was almost certain to continue changing as the huge shifts from mostly agricultural to the Industrial Age was going on along with a massive population boom made possible by previous increases in food production. Capitalism as such was still new, Capital is short supply while Labor was bountiful and thus almost powerless to make demands for higher wages, working conditions, etc. Conditions sure to change, and they did. The organized labor movement, governments , socialism all claim credit for what the invisible hand would have cured if left to itself.
The expansion of Capital obviously can't be infinite. Eventually we will produce enough that there isn't sufficient demand for more to make additional production profitable. But we ain't hit that limit and the smart money is on it not happening in the next hundred or so years.
wherein the more basic and survival-essential something is the less the forces of the woefully-misnamed "free market" should have a say in it
You admit Socialism doesn't produce. So you propose putting the important things under a system where shortages are a certainty and allowing the plentiful supply of unimportant luxury goods. Wow. So you would make it illegal to grow and sell food outside the government store? Try to think these ideas through a bit before suggesting them and sounding like a Prog politician making stupid promises that don't pass the smell test.
We should already be in post-scarcity in a big way
We are. If you only want to eat and have a roof over your head, in the 1st world that is a solved problem. Anybody willing to do much of anything need never go hungry. But of course nobody wants that, they see the other stuff and they want that too. They want an Xbox, iPhone, HDTV, cable and all the rest like modern medicine. Those things require massive capital infrastructure.
You want out of Capitalism? Pick yer ass up and go join the Amish. Nobody goes hungry there.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Sunday May 01 2016, @06:40AM
> If you only want to eat and have a roof over your head, in the 1st world that is a solved problem. Anybody willing to do much of anything need never go hungry.
No, it's not a solved problem. You forget human nature, and no, I don't mean sloth. I'm talking about greed. Some people will take from others no matter what harm that causes the victims and society. There are many, many ways to scam and cheat others, tilt the playing field through bribery and corruption, and use propaganda to make it all seem fair. We are bombarded with all kinds of expectations that are expensive and not really necessary. For example, there's an entire industry built around lawn care. The homeowner who doesn't want to mow the grass will encounter enormous pressure to do so, starting with neighbors who think concern for their property values give them a right to force others to conform, and enshrined in city ordinances that pejoratively describe tall grass as a "nuisance", a fire hazard, a refuge for "vermin", a reduction of driver visibility, etc., and therefore subject to stiff penalties. We waste a great deal of time, resources, and energy mowing grass. The lawn care industry is laughing all the way to the bank.
The conservatives are so worried about moral hazard and laziness among the unwashed masses, about blue collar malfeasance, that they overlook white collar malfeasance. They are too ready to uncritically employ the all too convenient mental shortcut that wealth and success is a sign of moral worth. God would not allow immoral sinners to succeed, would he? Both Main Street and Wall Street need policing, but under that logic, Wall Street can actually push the absurd nonsense that they can "self-regulate", and not be laughed out of the legislature. Since they and that sort of thinking wasn't greeted with the scorn and mockery it deserved, we ended up going through the Great Recession. Wall Street is not populated by angels, it's populated by cold, calculating, ruthless and entirely too socially irresponsible, amoral, and arrogant business people who will cheat if they think the risks of being caught are outweighed by the potential personal profit. Executive pay at large companies is ridiculously high. and why? Because executives all deserve such outsized compensation, even when the company posts a loss and a decline of market share? No, it's because corporate boards are packed with cronies.
> You want out of Capitalism?
No. We want out of corrupt crony Capitalism. We want out of monopolism. If we can't have fair Capitalism, with unbiased and unbought referees working to keep the game clean, then maybe Socialism is the answer, is the way to break the grip of the monopolists.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by dingus on Sunday May 01 2016, @06:45AM
Where to start with Marx's errors... such a target rich environment it is amazing so many folks were blind enough to follow him into chaos and fire... murdering a hundred million or so and still counting in his name.
If we're blaming all atrocities performed by states on the ideologies they claim to follow, Capitalism has a much higher death count.
His first mistake is his Labor Theory of Value. Once you translate his Marx speak back to English he is saying that the product of a hundred socially useful hours of general labor in a diamond mine has the exact same exchange value as the same labor mining coal or loading horse crap. Nobody had a problem with that?
Value doesn't mean money. Value in the Marxist sense means the actual social usefulness of something, its actual price is subject to all sorts of bullshit like artificial scarcity.
Capital is short supply while Labor was bountiful and thus almost powerless to make demands for higher wages, working conditions, etc.
The exact same thing is happening now. You think the life of a sweatshop worker now is significantly better than a sweatshop worker in 1870, especially considering the technological advancements since then? We produce enough to feed the world 1.18 times over or something like that, but millions starve.
The organized labor movement, governments , socialism all claim credit for what the invisible hand would have cured if left to itself.
What? There is absolutely no pressure on the market to increase wages. Otherwise we would never have to force the Capitalists' hands on the issue.
The expansion of Capital obviously can't be infinite. Eventually we will produce enough that there isn't sufficient demand for more to make additional production profitable. But we ain't hit that limit and the smart money is on it not happening in the next hundred or so years.
So we should just blindly push forward, making the eventual total collapse worse and worse? Sounds like a terrible plan to me.
Also, at this rate, the collapse will come after we reach peak oil, not when demand slows.
You admit Socialism doesn't produce. So you propose putting the important things under a system where shortages are a certainty and allowing the plentiful supply of unimportant luxury goods. Wow. So you would make it illegal to grow and sell food outside the government store? Try to think these ideas through a bit before suggesting them and sounding like a Prog politician making stupid promises that don't pass the smell test.
Socialist societies sure as hell do produce. How do you go from a backwater agrarian country to an industrialized superpower in 30 years while enduring three invasions and a civil war? You have a socialist revolution, that's how. Criticize the USSR all you want, but they got shit done.
If you only want to eat and have a roof over your head, in the 1st world that is a solved problem. Anybody willing to do much of anything need never go hungry.
So something like 1/4 of the world's population can barely hang on when they lose their job(for usually arbitrary reasons). For the rest, fuck 'em, amirite?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:30AM
Yeah, the free fall is so great, we don't want to open the parachute. After all, the floor will stop us anyway. Better let the falling speed grow as long as possible; growth is good, right?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Sunday May 01 2016, @10:26AM
Yes they did get shit done. Millions killed and even more slaved away in camps.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday May 02 2016, @04:09AM
So the same way as everyone else who got shit done.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday May 01 2016, @06:39PM
Capitalism has a much higher death count.
Citation needed. When has a free market driven country embarked on a program of genocide against their own population? On your team you get the Holocaust, the Holodomor, the Great Leap Forward, Pol Pot, etc. etc. All were explicitly programs carried out as implementation details of a socialist/communist government "breaking eggs to make the omlet". Show me a mass murder in the name of implementing Capitalism. Hint: Imperialism is orthogonal to Capitalism.
Value doesn't mean money. Value in the Marxist sense means the actual social usefulness of something, its actual price is subject to all sorts of bullshit like artificial scarcity.
Yea that is what I meant when I spoke of translating Marx's Newspeak to English. And if economic value / usefulness isn't to be measured in money, what do you propose as a substitute that won't instantly be the monetary unit? You guys didn't even understand Marx, he understood money. Hell, he is a bigger gold bug than Ron Paul.
We produce enough to feed the world 1.18 times over or something like that, but millions starve.
Our problem isn't, as you point out, insufficient production. It is distribution. The unequal distribution of Capitalism, Rule of Law, etc. You can't even send free food to most of the starving because local warlords steal it.
What? There is absolutely no pressure on the market to increase wages.
So you don't think the normal market forces of Supply and Demand apply to labor? Of course they do. Why do you think some jobs pay more than others?
How do you go from a backwater agrarian country to an industrialized superpower in 30 years while enduring three invasions and a civil war?
I could get into a long argument about what Russia needed was sound money and the rule of law and that given those two things they would have had prosperity. But I won't because that is a hypothetical and we have almost lab quality case studies we can use instead to compare Capitalism and Communism. Germany. The whole country was shattered into ruins after WWII and was split in two, both sides started with the same near zero industrial base, the same basic genetic stock of population with the only difference the governing philosophy. East Germany turned into a basket case, West Germany returned to being an industrial powerhouse and major world power.
Korea. North Korea is a basket case, South Korea isn't. China's economic rise has been almost directly proportional to the extent they relaxed central socialist control and allowed market forces to allocate resources. Cuba is a basket case. Venezuela is a basket case. Show me an example of a successful Communist country? Even the quasi-socialist Western European countries have figured out it is a failure and are moving toward free market based reforms.
For the rest, fuck 'em, amirite?
Pretty much. We have seen that even the might of the U.S. military can't bring stable government to many parts of the world unless and until the people there are educated enough to understand the issues of governing themselves and want to give up their failing governments. I don't see it as my duty to provide unlimited charity to fellow Americans, I certainly do not feel an obligation to provide the entire world a 1st world lifestyle whether they want it or not.
(Score: 2) by dingus on Monday May 02 2016, @02:02AM
Citation needed.
Well, first off: The holocaust was done by fascists, the mortal enemies of all communists and socialists. Hitler's regime regularly supported large businesses, and to a certain extent relied on their support. People often forget that communists were sent to the death camps too.
Second, this reddit post does a pretty good job of tallying off various atrocities committed by Capitalist countries: https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/comments/3i05ft/death_toll_of_capitalism/cuc6pz2. [reddit.com] Again, what states do while claiming to follow an ideology isn't really indicative of anything, it's just indicitive of how bad states are. The Soviets justified their murder with "Communism", we justify our murder with "Democracy" or maybe "We can't let the Commies win!". It's all the same thing.
Hint: Imperialism is orthogonal to Capitalism.
They're interdependent. How do you get resources when you're all out? Take it from some Africans. How do you keep producing things when your workers are demanding better wages? You move all the production to some third-world shithole where the people are used to taking starvation wages. How do you keep getting oil when all the oil-producing nations are getting all uppidy? Invade them. It's really convenient when you have the government in your back pocket.
And if economic value / usefulness isn't to be measured in money, what do you propose as a substitute that won't instantly be the monetary unit?
Labor vouchers(which are not money, they're one-time-use) have been suggested by some. Central planning by others. Allende's government tried to use computers to do it, but that was in the 70s so it didn't really work(well, and a US-backed coup put this wonderful man named Pinochet into power).
You can't even send free food to most of the starving because local warlords steal it.
And all the people starving to death in, say, Panama?
Or what about all the food that gets thrown away because it doesn't look nice enough to sell? Or all the food that rots because it costs too much for the hungry to buy?
So you don't think the normal market forces of Supply and Demand apply to labor?
It's been shown that labor does have a very different supply curve than other things. People will be desperate for jobs no matter how low they pay, because they'll live in abject (as compared to only normal) poverty otherwise.
The whole country was shattered into ruins after WWII and was split in two, both sides started with the same near zero industrial base, the same basic genetic stock of population with the only difference the governing philosophy.
Actually, East Germany started out way behind because the Soviets plundered it all. Soldiers were literally taking kitchen sinks and toilets out of houses, along with industrial implements. They also had severe brain drain problems. If that's not starting behind, I don't know what is.
North Korea is a basket case, South Korea isn't.
Maybe because North Korea only barely gets support from China, and South Korea gets full global support. Well, that and Juche is terrible.
Cuba is a basket case
Really now? Cuba's doing pretty good, especially for a country that's had to deal with constant aggression from its big powerful neighbor for 50 years. They have a better healthcare system than ours, and they've raised their literacy rates by 24%(it's higher than ours!). Barely anyone begs on the streets anymore. I'd say it's a big improvement over what they had previously.
Venezuela is a basket case
Venezuela's "socialism" didn't work because they tried to keep within the Capitalist system. Thus, they ended up basing their entire economy on the nationalized oil industry, which predictably screwed up.
Even the quasi-socialist Western European countries have figured out it is a failure and are moving toward free market based reforms.
You mean like France, where people are currently rioting over labor "reforms" imposed by their government? Yeah, seems like they really want them free markets.
Pretty much.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, sums up the entire Lolbertarian ideology. Fuck the poor.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Monday May 02 2016, @05:23AM
Well, first off: The holocaust was done by fascists, the mortal enemies of all communists and socialists.
I know you guys keep trying to throw 'ol Adolph under the bus or even give him to the Right but sorry, you get to keep him. National Socialism, i.e. mixing Nationalism with Socialism is just as socialist as Lenin's International Socialism or what Mao's Socialism has mutated into. Google up the origins of fascism and you will find it forked off of Socialism when Mussolini decided to just shotgun marry State and Capital instead of seizing it. But it comes off the Socialist family tree just the same. Same with Adolph mixing parts of fascism with his brand of Nationalism and yes, Socialism. The nastiest fights are in the family and the fight between Moscow oriented International Socialists and German oriented National Socialists was indeed fierce. But the Platform of the NAZI Party leave zero doubt as to their Socialism since Bernie Sanders would support more the planks than any of the other current candidates... and he is a confessed Socialist. q.e.d.
> Hint: Imperialism is orthogonal to Capitalism.
They're interdependent.
Capitalism is an Enlightenment idea, Imperialism was old when Rome was a little village.
Labor vouchers(which are not money, they're one-time-use) have been suggested by some. Central planning by others. Allende's government tried to use computers to do it, but that was in the 70s so it didn't really work(well, and a US-backed coup put this wonderful man named Pinochet into power).
In other words, stuff that didn't work or abstract theory that hasn't been tried yet so it hasn't failed. Yet. You seem to like Marxism, how about doing something really radical and try reading him.
Then go read some Austrian economics and get basic agreement on money and the need for it. You really can't get social division of labor developed very far without it.
It's been shown that labor does have a very different supply curve than other things. People will be desperate for jobs no matter how low they pay, because they'll live in abject (as compared to only normal) poverty otherwise.
So is food, basic shelter and anything else required to sustain life. Your point?
Next you handwave away every example of a Socialist hellhole with a series of No True Scotsman fallacies. So basically you are saying Socialism hasn't actually been tried correctly ANYWHERE yet, but if we only give it one more go it will work... if we all really believe super hard.
You mean like France, where people are currently rioting over labor "reforms" imposed by their government? Yeah, seems like they really want them free markets.
Of course people are rioting when the freebies are taken away. But France has run out of other people's money and that is that. They can just not like it, change comes.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, sums up the entire Lolbertarian ideology. Fuck the poor.
Not quite. If an opportunity presents itself it is perfectly good to help the poor... but only when it has a fair chance of actually helping a poor person, group of, or even country actually stop being poor. Dumping endless resources into a pointless effort only impoverishes everyone. If you send a shipload of grain to a starving country that is a hellhole and do nothing else you simply permit them to exist, but have done nothing to help them avoid needing another next week, next month, year, etc. They have too many people for their physical/social infrastructure to support, keep feeding them and it only gets worse as they continue breeding while the local warlord tightens his power by controlling the deliveries, the piles of free food destroy local farmers, etc. Recent history is replete with examples of good intentions causing great harm. On the other hand if there is a natural disaster, helping a country until another crop comes in is a wonderful thing, even better if private charity does it.
These guidelines apply equally to individuals. Don't give the homeless guy $5, do work with a shelter to help them get their lives together. It is fine to want to feel good. However your first impulse should be to do no harm. It is better to think, even if sometimes it means doing something hard like doing nothing.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 01 2016, @07:46PM
God, he's a piece of work, ain't he? @_@ Thanks for saying a lot of what I wanted to and couldn't work up the caring to.
I hope someday he gets unlucky and ends up on public assistance. The morally-consistent thing for him to do would be to commit suicide at that point.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by dingus on Monday May 02 2016, @02:12AM
Yeah, every once in awhile I get really pissed and spend 20 minutes on a post like that :P
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday May 01 2016, @06:19PM
Listen, you stupid motherfucker: much as you want to lump me in with the idiot SJWs and naive privileged college-club socialists, it's not gonna happen. My view on this is that we need a blend of capitalistic and socialistic policies; anything else ignores human nature with predictably fatal results. Sorry, but you don't get to pull that strawman on me and ignore what I'm saying.
The rest of your post is so incredibly poorly-researched, fallacious, and strawmanning I'm not even going to dignify it with a point by point response, which is my usual habit. You're both evil and willfully ignorant, as I said a perverted Calvinist who'd rather see people suffer ans die in misery than get "something they don't deserve."
We'll see how effective your money and your guns are in getting you out of hell in a few decades...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @12:14AM
His problem is that he doesn't even see the world in greyscale, which is why he'll never understand why we need a UBI. He can't distinguish UBI from our current welfare system that effectively discourages people who are dependent on it from seeking work because their benefits are worth more than they could possibly make in an entry-level position. That's perverse.
Every now and then I hear about somebody who's interviewed well at work but declined our offer because we couldn't pay them enough. If they accepted the job we were offering, they would have lost their cash benefits, food stamps, subsidized housing, and medicaid. I imagine this story plays out more than I would ever have a chance to hear about it.
But I don't need to convince you; it sounds like you already get it. Our Calvinist friend can't distinguish UBI from New Deal from European socialism from 5 year plans and labor camps in Stalinist Russia and Mao's China. There isn't even greyscale. There is only black and white, and anything that's even has a hint of what he's decided is evil mixed in is automatically evil, reality be damned.
UBI is my personal favorite answer to the realities you've identified, but it's not the only one.
I'm trying to remember where I saw the headline about some economist who said (probably cynically) that we'd be better off paying 90% of the remaining workforce to just stay at home and smoke pot all day. We'd be better off if most people would just get out of the way of the people who *actually* want to contribute and have the skills/knowledge/experience to do so. Of course we can't kill them, no matter how much I want to at the end of a work day of dealing with people whose only talent seems to be keeping a chair warm and playing a game of telephone with other telephone players. Nobody creates anything anymore. Nobody produces anything anymore.
I'm just thinking out loud waiting for the final economic collapse that will happen likely before 2019. All those telephone game jobs will evaporate because they contribute no real value, if anything negative value. It doesn't necessarily need to end in doom and gloom. Maybe I'm being too hasty by predicting 2019. But people will be starving while the social security office is swamped by desperate people who have fallen off the unemployment cliff trying to claim whatever disability they can. Starving people don't generally sit around doing nothing all day, especially when they have children to feed as well.
I just wonder what the TANSTAAFL! crowd will do. #1 thing they do wrong is shout "TANSTAAFL!" and conclude that because, yeah, somebody has to pay for the lunch of the guy who didn't "earn" it that, therefore, he shouldn't have it. Best invest in popcorn. Doomsday preppers are beginning to look less crazy every day to me.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday May 02 2016, @01:21AM
Christ, I hope I'll be in Canada or Germany before THAT dunghill hits the national windmill. It's a long shot but there's a friend who does blacksmithing and needs a web/linux/computer person (and hell, we can two-fer, blacksmithing and computer services!) who says he can get me over there on a work visa if need be.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Sunday May 01 2016, @10:24AM
Where would people need to read to find out about these warnings?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @04:32AM
Let me put it to you this way. You may be right. However, I am an arm chair economist. I have a degree in it (useless waste of money that).
This puts what the Fed is doing very nicely into one video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0 [youtube.com] I like it because it shows nicely what the gov is doing.
Basically they theory is that the economy has had a huge chunk of 'money/credit' disappear. So what they are doing is printing money to basically put it back in and in some way prop up the velocity of money. Is this a 'good thing'? Probably not. We are just borrowing from the future where the only way we could possibly pay it back would be to have massive inflation.
You are probably also right about the side effects of government mandated insurance (which is what obamacare is).
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday May 01 2016, @05:17AM
Basically they theory is that the economy has had a huge chunk of 'money/credit' disappear.
Yup, because a bubble they created popped. The price controlled home mortgage prices in the name of equality and fairness and the Gods of the Copybook Headings struck with terrible vengeance. Sagans of dollars of fantasy wealth disappeared again. They should have let it go, helped around the edges perhaps to help the economy take the blow, but basically allowed nature to take its course. They should have learned from their mistake. Nope, they doubled down. Because they follow Keynes and the one thing that must never, ever, happen is deflation. In truth it would have been a real mess, but it would have been a sharp, short depression and we would be recovered from it by now.
We are just borrowing from the future where the only way we could possibly pay it back would be to have massive inflation
Exactly. It is very difficult to meddle with a system as complex as our economy and not have the net effect be negative. Of course that is only by economic reckoning. In the real world we have to also account for political and social costs. Which is why I suggested it might have been a good idea to meddle just a bit, because too hard a depression can lead to political instability which is something pure economics does not deal with but it too has a cost, sometimes including an economic component. Riots and burned out cities have economic effects.
prop up the velocity of money
After slagging Marx mercilessly above, honesty compels me to admit that his explanation of the velocity of money was the clearest I have yet read. Still not convinced it has the importance Marx and Keynes attach to it, but he does explain the idea really good. Does mean that the sort of absolute stability of the monetary unit the hard core gold bugs seek probably isn't possible though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:09AM
Still not convinced it has the importance Marx and Keynes attach to it,
Its not too hard to think about. If money does not move then people do not work. With no work people have no meaning to their life. That was their point. I personally disagree with their methods but that conclusion is sound. Marx idea was to seize control and cut out the middle man. But with no middle men you can not see the whole market only your small piece. It is why the USSR ended up with a central committee to make decisions. As the 'mob' does not always make the best choice. Just efficient ones. Keynes used the idea of deficit spending to try to fight the cycle. But you can not beat the cycle. You can only change the amplitude and the period to some extent. His ideas are considered 'progressive' but they end up creating a state controlled system. Because the gov ends up being the only one who has credit. They end up buying everything and becoming 'too big to fail'.
Mostly govs try to mess with the cycle. The vid I posted had 3 different waves all going at the same time. I think he oversimplified it and smashed it all into one 'market' just for demonstration. However, all markets have them. It mathematically must happen with or without credit. It is the nature of the market trying to find equilibrium. There are thousands of them all going on. They all interconnect with each other. For example raising min wage will change the number of viable jobs in the economy. It must, there is no wishing it will not. That in turn has an effect in lowering how much money is available to spend thus lowering the 'velocity'. If you guess right with the min wage you can make things worse or at best do nothing. Considering the amount of inflation the Fed has created for example the 15 an hour wage may be a 'do nothing' but creates a false sense of spending. Thus making people borrow more expecting to be able to pay it back. In turn actually 'creating' more money. But money that is not really backed by anything other than hope. They are all interconnected loan markets, job markets, bond markets, cash markets, credit markets, oil markets, mcdonalds jobs markets, lego toys markets, etc etc etc. You can twist the knob on different things and create shockwaves in unexpected areas as they all change what is going on.
All economists will talk about the velocity of money. As it a 'crude' way of measuring how well an economy is doing. Even in a pure communistic society you have a market. It is just not necessarily measured in monetary terms. But in terms of labor usually.
Also that 20trillion in debt exists because as American society we do not want to raise taxes, or take it from the rich. That leaves force (most people dont care right now), or printing it. So we print.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:58AM
I think that point is wrong. It conflates two meanings of "work":
The first one is what drives money going round. The second one is what gives your life meaning. If you are lucky, both are the same. But there are enough people who work at jobs they don't like not because it gives them meaning, but because it gives them money, and in their free time do things they get no money for, but which give meaning to their life. The only purpose of their job is to get the money that enables them to live and do the things they derive meaning from.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:38PM
Oh I do not disagree with your point. Mine was that is what the were saying.
Marx assumption was exactly like you said. The workers are empowered to do what is necessary and they are happy. But at some point someone has to slog thru the shit to fix the pump that is broken. That is not an enjoyable job in any means. But someone must do it. So you end up with others making decisions for you. It is why it eventually fails.
Keynes knew about the cycle. He assumed you can fix the game as it were to make sure work continues. The problem he did not realize is you could continue to kick the can down the road as it were for a long time. You just end up with a different group owning everything because they basically end up the sole user of credit. It is like the old saying. If I owe you 1000 bucks I have a problem If I owe you 1 billion dollars you have a problem.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Sunday May 01 2016, @04:45AM
Given enough hotpockets and enough time.......
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by redneckmother on Sunday May 01 2016, @02:57AM
Someone, anyone, please explain...
How valid is the published unemployment rate? How are those who have "given up" finding employment counted? What allowances are made for persons whose unemployment benefits have expired, even though they have not found employment? I suspect that some people who used to be and/or want to be employed are not being counted.
What about people who are "under-employed" - people who receive a paycheck, but said paycheck doesn't match previous income or (sometimes) represent a living wage?
"There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damned lies, and statistics."
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:10AM
The unemployment rate is meaningless. shadowstats.com has a rundown on how and why the numbers have been changed to reflect political agendas.
True unemployment would require that you find the total number of people who are employed, divide by total population, and just accept the number. Some manipulation of numbers helps to make sense of the numbers - first, let us reduce total population to total population that is of working age. We might subtract home makers and primary care givers. That leaves x million people who are capable of producing something valuable, whether that be goods, services, entertainment, or whatever. Anyone not EMPLOYED, is by definition, "unemployed".
We have never had a meaningful "unemployment rate" figure in this country, and each administration tends to make the published numbers even less meaningful.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:18AM
http://www.shadowstats.com/ [shadowstats.com]
"Have you ever wondered why the CPI, GDP and employment numbers run counter to your personal and business experiences? The problem lies in biased and often-manipulated government reporting."
But see also: http://conceptualguerilla.com/essays/essays-on-economics-and-ideology/mythology-of-wealth/ [conceptualguerilla.com]
And recently: https://hbr.org/2015/06/the-great-decoupling [hbr.org]
And from 1964: http://www.educationanddemocracy.org/FSCfiles/C_CC2a_TripleRevolution.htm [educationanddemocracy.org]
"The fundamental problem posed by the cybernation revolution in the U.S. is that it invalidates the general mechanism so far employed to undergird people’s rights as consumers. Up to this time economic resources have been distributed on the basis of contributions to production, with machines and men competing for employment on somewhat equal terms. In the developing cybernated system, potentially unlimited output can be achieved by systems of machines which will require little cooperation from human beings. As machines take over production from men, they absorb an increasing proportion of resources while the men who are displaced become dependent on minimal and unrelated government measures—unemployment insurance, social security, welfare payments. These measures are less and less able to disguise a historic paradox: That a substantial proportion of the population is subsisting on minimal incomes, often below the poverty line, at a time when sufficient productive potential is available to supply the needs of everyone in the U.S.
The existence of this paradox is denied or ignored by conventional economic analysis. The general economic approach argues that potential demand, which if filled would raise the number of jobs and provide incomes to those holding them, is underestimated. Most contemporary economic analysis states that all of the available labor force and industrial capacity is required to meet the needs of consumers and industry and to provide adequate public services: Schools, parks, roads, homes, decent cities, and clean water and air. It is further argued that demand could be increased, by a variety of standard techniques, to any desired extent by providing money and machines to improve the conditions of the billions of impoverished people elsewhere in the world, who need food and shelter, clothes and machinery and everything else the industrial nations take for granted.
There is no question that cybernation does increase the potential for the provision of funds to neglected public sectors. Nor is there any question that cybernation would make possible the abolition of poverty at home and abroad. But the industrial system does not possess any adequate mechanisms to permit these potentials to become realities. The industrial system was designed to produce an ever-increasing quantity of goods as efficiently as possible, and it was assumed that the distribution of the power to purchase these goods would occur almost automatically. The continuance of the income-through-jobs link as the only major mechanism for distributing effective demand — for granting the right to consume — now acts as the main brake on the almost unlimited capacity of a cybernated productive system."
(Score: 3, Informative) by JNCF on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:21AM
People who have "given up" are not counted into the unemployment rate. The numbers are super shady and hard to figure. Some folks are probably lying and saying that they're looking for work when they're not, because they falsy believe that their answer could have an impact on their likeliness to recieve unemployment checks or other governemnt aid. Other folks are actually open to working, but haven't found work in a while and identify themselves as not looking for work when the economists studying the data would like them to identify the other way. There are a bunch of other potential factors I'm forgetting. Economists are very open about not trusting unemployment rates. I'm forgetting how underemployed people get counted, it's been a while since I took an economics (or any other) class.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:01PM
Some folks are probably lying and saying that they're looking for work when they're not, because they falsy believe that their answer could have an impact on their likeliness to recieve unemployment checks or other governemnt aid.
Other folks are actually open to working, but haven't found work in a while and identify themselves as not looking for work when the economists studying the data would like them to identify the other way.
So between the two, they even out! The system works.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Capt. Obvious on Sunday May 01 2016, @06:02AM
Very, if you can read them right. Notice the plural, there are mutliple measures of unemployment. If you know whihc you are looking for, then you can parse it really well.
People who have been without a job for 2 years (assumed to have given up) and those who have given up, are left out of the Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate
See above, they are assumed to have given up, because otherwise they would have found work. Well, I suppose with the new shorter benefit time may have made it so some people may be off unemployment, but still searching. One has nothing to do with the other.
They are, but there are numerous rates they are counted in. Not in the "5% unemployement " number
I believe unemployment only counts (a) Part time only work or (b) People over-credentialed for their current job (including those who are in a worse position.). Although there is no dount a way to look up min wage jobs, those aren't considered "under-employed". Hell, there are many people who make significanylu under min. wage (waiters, Ubedr drivers) too. Those aren't counted merely because they make little money.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Gravis on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:12AM
technology should benefit the customer to the point where people can be self-sufficient and not to have to endure "the daily grind" that is working on crap you don't really care about. instead, people should begin working on things they do care about and come together as groups to make something that everyone can benefit from. society would have to adapt to a world where money has no sway over other people but i think we would be better off for it.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:42AM
not to have to endure "the daily grind" that is working on crap you don't really care about
Sorry to drop reality on your dreams kid but until we have real robots that ain't happening. There is always going to be a lot of jobs that have to be done but nobody is going to want to do because they are following their dream or something hipster like that. Sewer systems are going to need maintaining so somebody gets to wade off into the shit. They are only going to be doing that sort of crappy job because somebody else is trading them something they really want. Same for guard duty, filling potholes in roads, butchering meat, grinding out mindless Javascript code, etc.
society would have to adapt to a world where money has no sway over other people but i think we would be better off for it.
Says somebody else educated beyond their intelligence or deliberately miseducated by Marxists. You need to read some actual economics before opening your mouth again and embarrassing yourself in public. The first thing you need to understand is what money is. Then you will realize it can't be eliminated and retain civilization. The only reason we can have a civilization is because we all benefit from the social division of labor, and anything but the most rudimentary tribal social organization means barter has to be replaced with a monetary unit, i.e. money.
Go. Now. www.mises.org and begin your education for free.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Sunday May 01 2016, @04:12AM
not to have to endure "the daily grind" that is working on crap you don't really care about
Sorry to drop reality on your dreams kid but until we have real robots that ain't happening.
And you know, that isn't always a bad thing.
When I was working in a mill, I walked out of that place every end-of-shift, and I was done. Done Done Done. I didn't carry that job home with me, worry about it, think about it. I was free of it. I didn't hate mill work. Some days I could complete my shift without paying much attention.
Then in college, I got into programming, and made a career out it, and I never get a day off. Mind is always grinding on it. It takes a week of vacation just to forget about the mountain of work and the intricate problems embedded there in. And I like programming.
I'm not sure even fleets of robots are going to provide ENJOYABLE free time that all the Utopians around here seem to thing. Because what ever hobby you turn your idle hands to will become a drudge after a while.
And any nation with large percentages of their people unemployed, and somehow fed, will be in constant turmoil, constant gang violence, and wars. Look to the Middle East where the unemployment rate is 60% in technically advanced countries like Egypt, and places like the oil states where nobody goes hungry, and you find an awfully large number of unemployed young men with nothing better to do than go off to war.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:57AM
Right. Look to technically advanced countries like Portugal or Spain, with up to 50% young people unemployed [tradingeconomics.com] and global unemployment rate almost 30% but where nobody gets hungry. And even then on the top of the list of the safest places of the known world [worldatlas.com].
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Sunday May 01 2016, @09:53AM
I guess how people are raised to treat other people matters..
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Monday May 02 2016, @01:08AM
Both those countries are PIIGS, meaning they are already dead men walking, surviving for a moment on the charity of the rest of the world. Unless they manage to quickly turn their economy around they are going to wake up one fine day and discover they are living in the zombie apocalypse. Nobody can say when it happens, none can say what event will be the trigger for the collapse but tick tock.
And yea, the rest of the world is about to have the same problems, perhaps at the same time the PIIGS collapse and put pressure on everyone else... fear of which is why the world keeps dumping money into them to avert the crisis another day. Things are going to reboot into a more sane configuration and it ain't going to be fun living through the transition.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 02 2016, @04:42AM
[...]surviving for a moment on the charity of the rest of the world.
Please, explain. Last time I checked at least Spain wasn't bailed out [wikipedia.org] by anyone's charity but only the banks at the expense of their own citizens.
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:17AM
Period.
Once the elections are ever, it will likely to become obvious even for folks in Manhattan and Frisco; perhaps even earlier.
The question is if they chose inflationary shock (which is what most assume) or a deflationary one at first.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:52AM
What has a small town in Texas [google.com] got to do with it?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @05:09AM
The Great Recession ended in 2009 and gave way to the Great Compression, in which people alternately discouraged by or just plain disgusted with the Great Recession decided to refrain from any economic activity until 2017 when the Obama Era will end. I propose we call such holdouts 17ers.
I expect to see a lot of long-term abandoned businesses spring right back to life in the spring of 17. Because the failed Obamanation will not last forever. His days are numbered by law, and then he's out of there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:24AM
The quoted line never appears in TFA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 01 2016, @01:28PM
It's the weekend. Whatever made-up shit gets posted here.
(Score: 2) by DutchUncle on Monday May 02 2016, @06:11PM
The quote was from a news-radio business report discussing the article.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by novak on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:49AM
technology is helping customers more than companies
Excuse me while I laugh myself to death. What about the technology used to push adds that slow computers to a crawl, or even include malware? What about the technology being used to keep people from modifying devices that they have bought and own? What about technology being used to spy on entire nations?
Technology that gets funded, as it happens, is what gets developed, and that technology tends to be pretty damn anti-user. Increasingly we see byzantine systems being used to squeeze ever more profit out of some poor user who genuinely believed that he was upgrading.
This sort of thing is the reason that I refuse to use some newer technology in favor of a battered old linux machine and a flip phone. It may not have the bells and whistles but at least I don't have to keep actively trying to stop it from me and selling me out to its real owners.
novak
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday May 01 2016, @04:28AM
Well, you can walk away from all that by just reaching over and punching that off switch.
There is far more to technology than that screen you are looking at. Cars, houses, power grids, farms (yeah, farms).
But you are right, the statement is still silly. The cars are welded by robots, the houses cookie cutter cut by cheap labor, power grids employ tiny tiny work forces, and even farms are automated.
Industry gains from technology can't be said to be less than consumers in any meaningful way. The statement is ludicrous.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Whoever on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:56AM
It's called competition. Does anyone think that companies don't try to grab and keep as much of the benefit as they can?
Arguing that companies should benefit more is effectively arguing in favor of monopolies or rigged markets.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hash14 on Sunday May 01 2016, @05:08AM
"One reason growth is not faster is because technology is helping customers more than companies."
Nothing is of value in this world if it's not making our economic rulers happy! Healthcare and drugs? Profitise it! Infrastructure? Profitise it! Pension and retirement savings? Telecommunications? Energy? Housing? Military? Government itself? Everything society does must be for the profit of the ultra-wealthy, and all other virtues be damned!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hyperturtle on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:03PM
I concur.
I am having a hard time even imagining what world this author lives on.
It is hard to accept his premise, knowing that companies like Uber -- horse carriage driver assignment for the 21st century -- are presently investing the profits made from their non-employees-without-benefits to design and replace them with robot cars.
It'd beyond buggy-whip manufacturer verus automated carriage piloting, with worries about how the street cleaners no longer have to scoop up road apples. No, it's about undercutting local industries, breaking local laws, lobbying to get new ones, spying on people, tracking people, gossiping about the good looking or famous people and posting it online or getting hacked because they didn't have good security people, and then abusing that relationship further to help drive costs down to eliminate the horses that made their carriages great to begin with -- inexpensively paid labor.
Horses, of course, were not known to have championed their own cart dragging services. They were fairly autonomous, though, and few ever rioted for more pay. They got used to the working conditions and mostly were fine with it when replaced (provided they didn't get turned into meals and glue, but I guess if that happened then few of them spoke up afterwards to complain about it).
For the uber drivers, they helped undermine and disrupt the existing system -- accepted getting lower pay, no benefits, and a continual downward spiral of compensation as the service became more and more popular.
And now, the sacrifices they made are the revenues used to fund the development of their intended replacements.
I suppose we could say that this level of investment is both consumer AND corporate friendly -- it's too bad the people that made the service what it is today are treated so hostilely by the people that they helped treat them this way.
Perhaps the real complaint is that in our plutocracy, the real issue is how to best use the technology to make money for everyone? These uber jobs have been the best paying jobs some college grads I know have ever had, and they hate it. "make as much as you want" is really just code for "always on the clock looking for rides with no time to reskill onself without having to shop for a new apartment or cheaper everything else because the college debt bills don't pay themselves and Uber barely does".
That said, I haven't even used the service myself as a paying customer, or sharing a ride with someone who hailed an Uber driver.
I did not write this to particularly single out Uber. They seem to be a good example that acts as a counterpoint for the author. If there is a company that isn't a tech firm themselves, that embraces many areas of modern computing culuture and technologies -- Uber is one that both impacts the virtual world we live in and the physical one we move about in, dependent on all sorts of technologies to make those worlds smoothly interact.
(Score: 2) by Capt. Obvious on Sunday May 01 2016, @05:47AM
Ummm....l technology should benefit people. Not companies. Maybe the inventors a bit. But most o fthe benefit should accrue to people at large.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Sunday May 01 2016, @08:00AM
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary economic growth, deserve neither liberty nor economic growth.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Sunday May 01 2016, @03:45PM
My mind can't quite wrap around this one. Technology is automating workflows like -crazy- at -all- big companies, causing them to need fewer employees. How are they not benefiting? The whole idea of a "secretary" or "receptionist" has largely ceased to exist, joining switchboard operators and typists. Companies are leaner, more automated, and frankly just plain better (wouldn't you rather resolve something with a few clicks online than go through a maze of phone options?) than ever.
You can't measure this kind of stuff for two reasons:
1. All companies do it, so all things are equal. If one of two competitors did it and the other didn't, then you could measure it... wait ... you can ... Wal-Mart is still viable, while K-Mart and the others aren't.
2. You can't grasp what would be happening now without this trend. You can't find some way to measure workflow automation versus doing it manually.
But it's still real. And they save a lot on carbon paper, too.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday May 01 2016, @10:22PM
many people are working part-time. Many people have given up looking for work. I've given up looking for a job, though I'm exploring ideas for starting a business.
I'm not the only homeless computer programmer here in Portland.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]