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>The need for a radical solution lies in the far future. How far in the future? What KPI would we look at to know when there is a need for a new solution to re

>The need for a radical solution lies in the far future. How far in the future? What KPI would we look at to know when there is a need for a new solution to replace our legacy economic model?

yummyfajitas 11y ago
As a very concrete way to think of it, consider the typical middle class lifestyle in India. Consider all the labor that is regularly outsourced - house cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc. If I want to eat a paan, buy a cigarette, or other snack/consumable, I only need to walk a city block or so before I can find someone willing to sell it to me. Any educated female can easily afford child care so she can work. My office has multiple servants to make life easier for the skilled labor employed therein; if you want maggie, momos or beer, just give them some cash and they'll bring it to you. At the moment the problem in the US is labor scarcity. Robots haven't replaced these jobs, these jobs just don't get done. When robots provide the same level of services to the US middle class, that would be a signal that we might need to think about something like a BI. Until then, BI is really solving the complete opposite problem to what we have.
- brenschluss 11y ago
  > At the moment the problem in the US is labor scarcity. Robots haven't replaced these jobs, these jobs just don't get done. Labor scarcity is another word for "there aren't enough people who want to work for less," and you describe it as if it's a good thing for society as a whole. We have minimum wage for a reason, because with wages low enough to make a neighborhood chai-seller a possibility, it means that the lower limit of a societal standard of living plummets. The fact that you present India, with its extreme income inequality, as an example of a country that provides an ideal lifestyle for you is indicative.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    According to the BI proponents, we have a shortage of jobs. Yet prices are rising and work is simply going undone. That's completely the opposite of what would happen if they were right. If you want to claim that less employment and lower production is a good thing, go ahead. Your facts are also wrong; the US has a GINI of 41 (comparable to the UK or the Congo). In contrast, India has only 33.6 (comparable to France, Canada or Sierra Leone). India has absolute poverty which is a totally different problem.
    - brenschluss 11y ago
      > India has absolute poverty which is a totally different problem. Good point, but it doesn't change my argument; your conveniences are made possible by the higher poverty / lower income of service providers. > If you want to claim that less employment and lower production is a good thing, go ahead. Do you believe that lowering standards of living by eliminating minimum wage is a good thing, because it "increases employment and production"? For example: Mumbai's trash and recycling ecosystem is largely driven by a complex economy of ragpickers, sorters, and tiny recycling factories based in informal settlements (Dharavi, etc). Last time I checked (Summer 2014), the ragpickers are paid 5rs per kg, and on average collect about 10kg a day, making that around 50rs, $0.75, or 48% the cost of a Big Mac (or its equivalent, the Maharaja Mac) in India. Would you really agree that someone who works all day to make 50% of a Big Mac be an ideal model of employment and societal economic policy, because they're working and thus raising employment and production? Because that's what you're asking for if you're claiming that we need to stop a "labor shortage" in order to provide more low-cost conveniences.
      - yummyfajitas 11y ago
        I didn't say we should adopt India's economic system. I said that we have a labor scarcity, not a surplus, as demonstrated by all the work people would like to have done - and which other parts of the world demonstrate can be done - but which isn't being done (by humans or robots). Therefore a solution designed for a surplus is counterproductive. If indeed we have a shortage rather than scarcity (note the terms are not synonymous - a shortage is a quantity supplied below market clearing rates), then we should focus on the root causes of that shortage rather than simply ignoring the problem. Minimum wage might be one such cause, though I rather doubt it (market wages tend to be way above min wage). I suspect that if we have an actual shortage it's regulatory constraints [1] and work disincentives [2] that are the real problem. [1] In the US people seem willing to sell cigarettes at convenient locations, much like in India. But we have the unfortunate habit of using violence to prevent this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner [2] For instance, witness NPR's article on massive numbers of people committing disability fraud to avoid work. If we cracked down on disability fraud, some of those folks would have to return to the workforce. http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/
- laotzu 11y ago
  >At the moment the problem in the US is labor scarcity. Robots haven't replaced these jobs, these jobs just don't get done. Labor scarcity in the sense that there's not enough people who need work, or in the sense that there is not enough people who have the necessary skills? I would have to assume the latter. If that is the case, aren't most of these scarce skills the type which are used to service and maintain the very automation which would be used to implement a UBI? >When robots provide the same level of services to the US middle class, that would be a signal that we might need to think about something like a BI. Automation already provides a much higher level of services than human workers in many areas. Do we really want to wait to the very end of this process to begin the transition?
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    The work I'm describing is all minimally skilled labor. Automation already provides a much higher level of services than human workers in many areas. Do we really want to wait to the very end of this process to begin the transition? Right now our problem is too little labor, not too much. Maybe we should wait until we at least have enough labor before we take steps that will reduce the labor supply? Note that according to the experiments which BI proponents cite as "successes", BI reduces labor supply by 10% or so (e.g. mincome reduced labor by 13%). https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money-to-everyone/31639050894-e44e2c00 https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money... http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20(2).pdf http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20(2).pdf For comparison, the great recession reduced labor supplied by 5%. Under circumstances of labor scarcity, BI would be wildly counterproductive. Implementing a BI now is like a fat person eating 5 cheeseburgers on the theory that they might starve in some distant apocalyptic future.
    - alanwatts 11y ago
      >Right now our problem is too little labor, not too much. Maybe we should wait until we at least have enough labor before we take steps that will reduce the labor supply? At what point would you know there is enough labor and how would you measure that? It would have to be once a certain goal is achieved, correct? What is that goal? I'm curious because in a time where there are 7 billion people I have rarely, if ever, seen someone say on the whole there are too many jobs and not enough laborers. Rather it's more often said that there are too many laborers and not enough jobs. Which is precisely the type of sentiment that drives anti-immigration xenophobia.
kordless 11y ago
"Not so far in the future", says the futurist. The issue with KPIs is that it focuses attention on a single indicator, which is what most business in the world revolves around (a stock ticker is a good example). Businesses run in a holistic way tend to do better, such as those explained in Good to Great (productive paranoia + empirical creativity + fanatical discipline). The same holistic approach could be applied to our economy, but lots of moving parts is going to make it hard to tell when, or if, things need to be changed. I expect a financial meltdown to be the thing that causes a revisit to exploring new business and economic models.
- alanwatts 11y ago
  I holistically agree!

>The need for a radical solution lies in the far future. How far in the future? What KPI would we look at to know when there is a need for a new solution to replace our legacy economic model?

yummyfajitas 11y ago

As a very concrete way to think of it, consider the typical middle class lifestyle in India. Consider all the labor that is regularly outsourced - house cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc. If I want to eat a paan, buy a cigarette, or other snack/consumable, I only need to walk a city block or so before I can find someone willing to sell it to me. Any educated female can easily afford child care so she can work. My office has multiple servants to make life easier for the skilled labor employed therein; if you want maggie, momos or beer, just give them some cash and they'll bring it to you. At the moment the problem in the US is labor scarcity. Robots haven't replaced these jobs, these jobs just don't get done. When robots provide the same level of services to the US middle class, that would be a signal that we might need to think about something like a BI. Until then, BI is really solving the complete opposite problem to what we have.

brenschluss 11y ago
> At the moment the problem in the US is labor scarcity. Robots haven't replaced these jobs, these jobs just don't get done. Labor scarcity is another word for "there aren't enough people who want to work for less," and you describe it as if it's a good thing for society as a whole. We have minimum wage for a reason, because with wages low enough to make a neighborhood chai-seller a possibility, it means that the lower limit of a societal standard of living plummets. The fact that you present India, with its extreme income inequality, as an example of a country that provides an ideal lifestyle for you is indicative.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  According to the BI proponents, we have a shortage of jobs. Yet prices are rising and work is simply going undone. That's completely the opposite of what would happen if they were right. If you want to claim that less employment and lower production is a good thing, go ahead. Your facts are also wrong; the US has a GINI of 41 (comparable to the UK or the Congo). In contrast, India has only 33.6 (comparable to France, Canada or Sierra Leone). India has absolute poverty which is a totally different problem.
  - brenschluss 11y ago
    > India has absolute poverty which is a totally different problem. Good point, but it doesn't change my argument; your conveniences are made possible by the higher poverty / lower income of service providers. > If you want to claim that less employment and lower production is a good thing, go ahead. Do you believe that lowering standards of living by eliminating minimum wage is a good thing, because it "increases employment and production"? For example: Mumbai's trash and recycling ecosystem is largely driven by a complex economy of ragpickers, sorters, and tiny recycling factories based in informal settlements (Dharavi, etc). Last time I checked (Summer 2014), the ragpickers are paid 5rs per kg, and on average collect about 10kg a day, making that around 50rs, $0.75, or 48% the cost of a Big Mac (or its equivalent, the Maharaja Mac) in India. Would you really agree that someone who works all day to make 50% of a Big Mac be an ideal model of employment and societal economic policy, because they're working and thus raising employment and production? Because that's what you're asking for if you're claiming that we need to stop a "labor shortage" in order to provide more low-cost conveniences.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      I didn't say we should adopt India's economic system. I said that we have a labor scarcity, not a surplus, as demonstrated by all the work people would like to have done - and which other parts of the world demonstrate can be done - but which isn't being done (by humans or robots). Therefore a solution designed for a surplus is counterproductive. If indeed we have a shortage rather than scarcity (note the terms are not synonymous - a shortage is a quantity supplied below market clearing rates), then we should focus on the root causes of that shortage rather than simply ignoring the problem. Minimum wage might be one such cause, though I rather doubt it (market wages tend to be way above min wage). I suspect that if we have an actual shortage it's regulatory constraints [1] and work disincentives [2] that are the real problem. [1] In the US people seem willing to sell cigarettes at convenient locations, much like in India. But we have the unfortunate habit of using violence to prevent this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Eric_Garner [2] For instance, witness NPR's article on massive numbers of people committing disability fraud to avoid work. If we cracked down on disability fraud, some of those folks would have to return to the workforce. http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/ http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/
laotzu 11y ago
>At the moment the problem in the US is labor scarcity. Robots haven't replaced these jobs, these jobs just don't get done. Labor scarcity in the sense that there's not enough people who need work, or in the sense that there is not enough people who have the necessary skills? I would have to assume the latter. If that is the case, aren't most of these scarce skills the type which are used to service and maintain the very automation which would be used to implement a UBI? >When robots provide the same level of services to the US middle class, that would be a signal that we might need to think about something like a BI. Automation already provides a much higher level of services than human workers in many areas. Do we really want to wait to the very end of this process to begin the transition?
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  The work I'm describing is all minimally skilled labor. Automation already provides a much higher level of services than human workers in many areas. Do we really want to wait to the very end of this process to begin the transition? Right now our problem is too little labor, not too much. Maybe we should wait until we at least have enough labor before we take steps that will reduce the labor supply? Note that according to the experiments which BI proponents cite as "successes", BI reduces labor supply by 10% or so (e.g. mincome reduced labor by 13%). https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money-to-everyone/31639050894-e44e2c00 https://decorrespondent.nl/541/why-we-should-give-free-money... http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20(2).pdf http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20(2).pdf For comparison, the great recession reduced labor supplied by 5%. Under circumstances of labor scarcity, BI would be wildly counterproductive. Implementing a BI now is like a fat person eating 5 cheeseburgers on the theory that they might starve in some distant apocalyptic future.
  - alanwatts 11y ago
    >Right now our problem is too little labor, not too much. Maybe we should wait until we at least have enough labor before we take steps that will reduce the labor supply? At what point would you know there is enough labor and how would you measure that? It would have to be once a certain goal is achieved, correct? What is that goal? I'm curious because in a time where there are 7 billion people I have rarely, if ever, seen someone say on the whole there are too many jobs and not enough laborers. Rather it's more often said that there are too many laborers and not enough jobs. Which is precisely the type of sentiment that drives anti-immigration xenophobia.

kordless 11y ago

"Not so far in the future", says the futurist. The issue with KPIs is that it focuses attention on a single indicator, which is what most business in the world revolves around (a stock ticker is a good example). Businesses run in a holistic way tend to do better, such as those explained in Good to Great (productive paranoia + empirical creativity + fanatical discipline). The same holistic approach could be applied to our economy, but lots of moving parts is going to make it hard to tell when, or if, things need to be changed. I expect a financial meltdown to be the thing that causes a revisit to exploring new business and economic models.

alanwatts 11y ago
I holistically agree!