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Ah, yes, the old "train everyone to be a doctor, lawyer, or CEO" mindset (actually, 2 of those 3 are at risk these days too!). Here's the thing. Not everyone

Ah, yes, the old "train everyone to be a doctor, lawyer, or CEO" mindset (actually, 2 of those 3 are at risk these days too!). Here's the thing. Not everyone in this country can be a CEO. The WALL-E premise of everyone living the fat life (pun intended) while the robots do the work is not viable. The truth is that this country is made up of people with a broad spectrum of capabilities and talents. Furthermore, these people are not fungible resources that can easily relocate to whatever third world country that has now usurped their former job functions. We have already seen large parts of this country's population essentially permanently displaced with the mass outsourcing of manufacturing. These were good paying, stable blue-collar jobs that people who were not born to be CEOs could rely on, live a good life, and raise families. Now look at the former manufacturing cities. They did not all magically retrain to be knowledge workers. Instead, entire communities were laid to waste. Now extend what happened to manufacturing to skilled labor under your "every job to the cheapest bidder" philosophy. What happens? Maybe plastic crap at Toys-R-Us is 3 cents cheaper. But eventually a large enough percentage of this country is displaced to where society itself becomes unstable. When this destabilization eats away at enough of foundations of our society, even the wealthy will be affected. Government's job is (supposed to be) to take the longview on what is good for a healthy American society, not to facilitate multi-national corporations in their quest to cut every cost they can.

NhanH 11y ago
What I don't understand in all the "jobs are moving oversea" discussion is that the opponent seems to be advocating for economic inefficiencies (creating/keeping jobs in the States at all costs, comparative advantage be damned) as a mean for keeping a healthy society. Shouldn't the correct and proper solution be some appropriate measurements like basic income or better social welfare in general? Jobs are a mean to create wealth (and by extensions, welfare) for a society. I don't understand the reason for trying to reduce the wealth being created in some notion of keep "jobs", and if the inland American economy can not generate enough wealth for some reasons, then we have bigger problems to deal with. Essentially, this is a wealth redistribution issue, and should be treated as such, focusing on creating "jobs" seems to be the wrong idea to go at it.
- thoman23 11y ago
  Well you certainly have a point. I would argue that a working society is a society with purpose and is ultimately healthier than a society without jobs but adequate social welfare. But more pragmatically, I don't think a truly livable basic income program is in this country's DNA.
- jordanb 11y ago
  Who's going to pay the cost of a basic income system? Right now the tax base rests on the middle class (which is rapidly collapsing). The globalization that allows the wealthy to eliminate their first-world workforce also allows them to avoid just about any tax they don't feel like paying.
  - NhanH 11y ago
    Assuming that if the system work out when everyone/every company pays their required share of tax (otherwise, it's back to the wealth creation issue, and advocating for more economic inefficiencies won't help), and it's just a problem of tax avoidance, then the solution is to fix the taxation system. I'm not saying that everything is fine and dandy, I'm saying that pointing finger to random chicken in the sky and shoot them won't solve the real issue. There are a lot of problems, but American politics right now is a bit engrossed in the wrong kind of trivialities.
  - aianus 11y ago
    > Right now the tax base rests on the middle class (which is rapidly collapsing). Where did you get that from? The wealthiest 1% of Americans alone pay 50% of the federal income tax. The bottom 80% pay only 15%. Edit: at a 50% marginal tax rate if the 1% get 60% richer through this kind of automation and offshoring, we could lower the tax rate on the bottom 80% to zero! Edit #2: If the 1% get 120% richer, we could start handing out checks to everyone in the bottom 80% equal to what they're paying in taxes today! See where I'm going with this?
    - amlgsmsn 11y ago
      > The wealthiest 1% of Americans alone pay 50% of the federal income tax. The bottom 80% pay only 15%. You're confusing wealth with income.
aianus 11y ago
> "train everyone to be a doctor, lawyer, or CEO" Or chef, or plumber, or auto mechanic, or teacher, or construction worker, ... Don't worry, we haven't run out of things that people do better than machines yet!

NhanH 11y ago

What I don't understand in all the "jobs are moving oversea" discussion is that the opponent seems to be advocating for economic inefficiencies (creating/keeping jobs in the States at all costs, comparative advantage be damned) as a mean for keeping a healthy society. Shouldn't the correct and proper solution be some appropriate measurements like basic income or better social welfare in general? Jobs are a mean to create wealth (and by extensions, welfare) for a society. I don't understand the reason for trying to reduce the wealth being created in some notion of keep "jobs", and if the inland American economy can not generate enough wealth for some reasons, then we have bigger problems to deal with. Essentially, this is a wealth redistribution issue, and should be treated as such, focusing on creating "jobs" seems to be the wrong idea to go at it.

thoman23 11y ago
Well you certainly have a point. I would argue that a working society is a society with purpose and is ultimately healthier than a society without jobs but adequate social welfare. But more pragmatically, I don't think a truly livable basic income program is in this country's DNA.
jordanb 11y ago
Who's going to pay the cost of a basic income system? Right now the tax base rests on the middle class (which is rapidly collapsing). The globalization that allows the wealthy to eliminate their first-world workforce also allows them to avoid just about any tax they don't feel like paying.
- NhanH 11y ago
  Assuming that if the system work out when everyone/every company pays their required share of tax (otherwise, it's back to the wealth creation issue, and advocating for more economic inefficiencies won't help), and it's just a problem of tax avoidance, then the solution is to fix the taxation system. I'm not saying that everything is fine and dandy, I'm saying that pointing finger to random chicken in the sky and shoot them won't solve the real issue. There are a lot of problems, but American politics right now is a bit engrossed in the wrong kind of trivialities.
- aianus 11y ago
  > Right now the tax base rests on the middle class (which is rapidly collapsing). Where did you get that from? The wealthiest 1% of Americans alone pay 50% of the federal income tax. The bottom 80% pay only 15%. Edit: at a 50% marginal tax rate if the 1% get 60% richer through this kind of automation and offshoring, we could lower the tax rate on the bottom 80% to zero! Edit #2: If the 1% get 120% richer, we could start handing out checks to everyone in the bottom 80% equal to what they're paying in taxes today! See where I'm going with this?
  - amlgsmsn 11y ago
    > The wealthiest 1% of Americans alone pay 50% of the federal income tax. The bottom 80% pay only 15%. You're confusing wealth with income.

aianus 11y ago

> "train everyone to be a doctor, lawyer, or CEO" Or chef, or plumber, or auto mechanic, or teacher, or construction worker, ... Don't worry, we haven't run out of things that people do better than machines yet!