Work is for machines

[Craig Good]

I do not necessarily endorse any views in this article, but it's very interesting.

[jack saunders]

This gets down to a metaphysical puzzle nobody had ever given much thought to -- since, pretty much forever, we have seen "work" as the primary basis for claims on resources.  Even criminals do this implicitly by trying to cover their tracks.

But if employment is no longer to have a role in deciding who gets what, what becomes the new unit of entitlement?

Are we back to Richard Nixon's "negative income tax" idea -- essentially a government debit card for every man, woman and child?

I'd be up for such a discussion -- for social harmony reasons that would benefit the plutocrats along with the plebs.  If everybody got a "Decent Living" debit card, it would clear the decks of all the distracting clatter pumped into the system by the ambitious of dubious talent.  Leave ambition, with all its tub-thumping, to the truly talented.  All the rest of us....out to ballpark.  

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From: Craig Good <clg...@gmail.com>
To: Ipse Dixit <Ipse-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2016 9:24 PM
Subject: [Ipse Dixit] Work is for machines

I do not necessarily endorse any views in this article, but it's very interesting.

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[Brian Howell]

I think we have at least a few months before we have to bow down to our new robot overlords.

http://gizmodo.com/what-googles-self-driving-car-team-learned-from-hitting-1764409297

[jack saunders]

I respect them because they have persuaded me.  It seemed like a laughable vision at first.  Gradually they did the work.  Did the tests.  Did the regulatory bullshit.  Now it's rolling.  And from my monitoring of the progress, we see nothing but nice improvement we would hope to see at this stage from a private company stripped of utility style intellectual overhead.

 

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From: Brian Howell <bdho...@gmail.com>
To: Ipse Dixit <Ipse-...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: clg...@gmail.com; jack...@pacbell.net
Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2016 4:07 PM
Subject: Re: [Ipse Dixit] Work is for machines -- out to the ballpark!

I think we have at least a few months before we have to bow down to our new robot overlords.

http://gizmodo.com/what-googles-self-driving-car-team-learned-from-hitting-1764409297

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[Scott Hotes]

Just getting around to this.  The concept of a Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) is

problematic for a number of reasons.  For one thing, it is unconstitutional.  I can't

think of an argument whereby the federal government would be granted the right

to tax citizens for the purpose of paying them some kind of stipend.

Second, and more to the heart of the matter, the concept flies in the face of the

purpose or function of out federal government, as laid out in the founding documents

and subsequent case law.  Namely, the government provides for certain benefits,

such as national defense, etc., and in turn we are taxed to pay for them.  Isn't

that the deal?

The concept of a UBI turns this deal on it's head, something akin to:  citizens pay

some variable portion of their income into a federal fund, and the federal government

determines how it is dispersed back to the citizens.  Why not then just drop the

pretense, turn the "means of production" over to the federal government, and just

get it over with?

Regarding the threat that AI is going to displace jobs, and thus some kind of UBI

is necessary, is, at least to me, a huge, unsubstantiated leap.

As a side note, if AI is going to be this disruptive force in our economy, we may

need to be considering how the major developers of AI (i.e. the four largest tech

companies) are gaining a monopolistic hold on the space, supported by the "free

market" bills exporting the US version of intellectual property law currently under

consideration.

Scott

--

My main doubt is whether it really is the corporate law which has given rise to corporations bigger than they would become under the . . . free market, or whether it is not largely the greater influence on the political machine, which the great corporation exerts, which has favoured its growth.

-- F.A. Hayek

On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 9:24 PM, Craig Good <clg...@gmail.com> wrote:

I do not necessarily endorse any views in this article, but it's very interesting.

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[jack saunders]

I'm not a believer in UBI, but conclude that it's proponents see it as a legitimate security/social harmony measure when confronting mass unemployment that is not a one-off deal but a new normal.

In that case (AI case, for example), UBI is a preemptive settle-up with the losers, not unlike a corporate buyout.  Sign this piece of paper, get your money, and stop whining.  Your claims have been addressed and adjusted.

Without such a mechanism, UBI proponents say, there might have to been much more costly and less pleasant policing measures to contain the desperate.

So which do you want to fund with your tax dollars?  Stay away money?  Or prison camp money?

 

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From: Scott Hotes <sah...@gmail.com>
To: Craig Good <clg...@gmail.com>
Cc: Ipse Dixit <Ipse-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, March 28, 2016 3:01 PM

Subject: Re: [Ipse Dixit] Work is for machines

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/Ipse-dixit/CAC7%2BDAD1H9mi3tPQs7HMahiw117mDdtz2-ynd%3DBrK4930HQcLQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Craig Good]

I've never seen a UBI proposal that says where they get the money. I assumed it was from a big box they keep in Aqaba.

--

    --Craig

    clg...@me.com       http://www.craig-good.com

[Jack Saunders]

Income taxes well north of 50 pct.

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[Brian Howell]

From 1945 to 1963 top marginal rates were at or north of 90%. And this was during the postwar boom that saw the most rapid expansion of American manufacturing and consumer consumption in history. 

http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/fed_individual_rate_history_adjusted.pdf

From 1964 to 1981, the top rate was around 70%. 

[jack saunders]

In those days, guys like Aristotle Onassis were strictly foreigners (yachts for hundreds, private airliners, castles and islands).  There came a time when this galled a generation of young turks on Wall Street -- Larry Kudlow in his wild coke-snorting years.  How would American plutocrats ever buy islands with marginal tax rates like that?

So they got down to brass tacks and invented "supply side" economics -- the first step of which is tax cuts at the top.

But even at a old fuddie-duddie level of 1950s Republicanism, there was always a "cost of government" strain running through the conservative platform -- a recognition that whatever government did, from running the schools to cleaning the streets, it was going to be paid for by the rich.  It's not hard to sympathize with the cost fretters -- since all the good ideas for new govt initiatives came from folks who paid little in taxes.

 

 

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From: Brian Howell <bdho...@gmail.com>
To: Ipse Dixit <Ipse-...@googlegroups.com>

Cc: clg...@me.com; sah...@gmail.com; clg...@gmail.com
Sent: Tuesday, March 29, 2016 10:55 AM

Subject: Re: [Ipse Dixit] Work is for machines

From 1945 to 1963 top marginal rates were at or north of 90%. And this was during the postwar boom that saw the most rapid expansion of American manufacturing and consumer consumption in history. 

http://taxfoundation.org/sites/taxfoundation.org/files/docs/fed_individual_rate_history_adjusted.pdf

From 1964 to 1981, the top rate was around 70%. 

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