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Exactly, and nevermind the automation that has been taking place in the last 5000 years or so. Gutenberg's printing press displaced the monks who manually copie
by svantana 10y ago
Exactly, and nevermind the automation that has been taking place in the last 5000 years or so. Gutenberg's printing press displaced the monks who manually copied bibles -- should printing presses be taxed to parity with human labor, so that printing one page of a magazine costs $100? I find it bizarre that a guy as bright as Gates would support such an unworkable idea.
- mcguire 10y agoI rather suspect that "taxed to parity with human labor" is heavily overstating the actual suggestion.
- Old_Thrashbarg 10y agoRight it would hypocritical to only apply the tax to new automation. To be fair, we'd have to tax tractors, ATMs and calculators too.
- cjlars 10y agoThe problem, if there ends up being one, is the speed of displacement. People worry that too much downward pressure on so called 'middle class' jobs will create another 30 year stretch of zero wage growth for a big part of the population, which in turn puts a lot of political pressure on the system to 'do something'. Very hard to say if that will come true though, if automation dramatically speeds up, we would see a surge in productivity. Yet in recent years, we are seeing slower, rather than faster productivity growth relative to the long term trend. Take note that the doomsday jobs predictions implicitly forecast that we'll be making more stuff, using less effort, meaning society will be richer. From a tax policy perspective, a VAT addresses Gate's concerns pretty well.