6 ms·

Drones, automated harvesting, self driving trucks, software etc. will make their way into those industries eventually. If wage growth isn't coming organically

Drones, automated harvesting, self driving trucks, software etc. will make their way into those industries eventually. If wage growth isn't coming organically for whatever reason, then some form of wage subsidy will need to occur. Or, you just have large swaths of lower middle class people in a growing state of contempt for the city dwelling elites.

cscurmudgeon 5y ago
> Drones, automated harvesting, self driving trucks, software etc. will make their way into those industries eventually. We can't sit around starving till then while paying people to do no work. Well-intention but top down policies meeting agriculture has almost always resulted in mass starvation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932–1933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932–1933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortages_in_Venezuela https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortages_in_Venezuela
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  Our agriculture industry is heavily subsidized throughout by “top down policies”.
  - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
    Subsidies are very different from micromanagement. Also, the US is not even the top country when it comes to agri subsidies. https://www.hinrichfoundation.com/research/article/protectionism/agricultural-subsidies/ https://www.hinrichfoundation.com/research/article/protectio...
- antifa 5y ago
  "Only communists try to solve problems" is not a good argument.
  - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
    Yes, and that was not my argument. The argument was "only communists try to solve OTHER people's problems for them and end up creating more problems for OTHER people than they started with"
    - antifa 5y ago
      Congrats on defining the vast majority of good people as "communists" while simultaneously virtue signaling "communism bad".
      - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
        Congrats on not following one iota of my argument. I personally think communism caused mass starvations that killed millions are bad. If that makes me an evil capitalist, so be it. (As someone who has lived through one such micro famine in a socialist country, I feel I am entitled to that opinion.)
        antifa 5y ago
        Your "argument" was a low quality, bad faith, thinly veiled "You know who else enacted policy? Stalin!".
        Frost1x 5y ago
        You know you don't have to go all the way to communism to fix the problems we're seeing. You simply need to take a step back from extreme capitalism were currently experiencing with a little bit of revamping. It worked fairly well, let's just fix some minor things that seem to be systemic problems with capitalism unless we want to be the poster child of how horrible capitalism is when it fails just as the Soviet Union is the poster child of failures of extreme communism.
        rsj_hn 5y ago
        > You simply need to take a step back from extreme capitalism were currently experiencing In what universe are the western democracies experiencing "extreme capitalism"? This is a mind-boggling statement. Just in the U.S.: Government consumes 15% of GDP FIRE is 20% of GDP Healthcare is 20% of GDP Education is 5% of GDP None of the above industries can be considered "free market", yet they are 60% of the economy. The "free market" is thrashing around somewhere in the remaining 40%. But not really, because on the income side, Government spending is 44% of GDP (the difference between government spending and consumption is all the checks being mailed out). Private spending is basically only half. Thus half of all economic spending is being directed by politicians. Extreme free market? Moreover in the labor markets, we have an extremely regulated economy, in which 23% of US workers need a government license to legally do their job. Extreme free market?
- imtringued 5y ago
  >We can't sit around starving till then while paying people to do no work. I already suggested giving these people work instead of income.

cscurmudgeon 5y ago

> Drones, automated harvesting, self driving trucks, software etc. will make their way into those industries eventually. We can't sit around starving till then while paying people to do no work. Well-intention but top down policies meeting agriculture has almost always resulted in mass starvation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932–1933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932–1933 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korean_famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortages_in_Venezuela https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortages_in_Venezuela

germinalphrase 5y ago
Our agriculture industry is heavily subsidized throughout by “top down policies”.
- cscurmudgeon 5y ago
  Subsidies are very different from micromanagement. Also, the US is not even the top country when it comes to agri subsidies. https://www.hinrichfoundation.com/research/article/protectionism/agricultural-subsidies/ https://www.hinrichfoundation.com/research/article/protectio...
antifa 5y ago
"Only communists try to solve problems" is not a good argument.
- cscurmudgeon 5y ago
  Yes, and that was not my argument. The argument was "only communists try to solve OTHER people's problems for them and end up creating more problems for OTHER people than they started with"
  - antifa 5y ago
    Congrats on defining the vast majority of good people as "communists" while simultaneously virtue signaling "communism bad".
    - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
      Congrats on not following one iota of my argument. I personally think communism caused mass starvations that killed millions are bad. If that makes me an evil capitalist, so be it. (As someone who has lived through one such micro famine in a socialist country, I feel I am entitled to that opinion.)
      - antifa 5y ago
        Your "argument" was a low quality, bad faith, thinly veiled "You know who else enacted policy? Stalin!".
      - Frost1x 5y ago
        You know you don't have to go all the way to communism to fix the problems we're seeing. You simply need to take a step back from extreme capitalism were currently experiencing with a little bit of revamping. It worked fairly well, let's just fix some minor things that seem to be systemic problems with capitalism unless we want to be the poster child of how horrible capitalism is when it fails just as the Soviet Union is the poster child of failures of extreme communism.
        rsj_hn 5y ago
        > You simply need to take a step back from extreme capitalism were currently experiencing In what universe are the western democracies experiencing "extreme capitalism"? This is a mind-boggling statement. Just in the U.S.: Government consumes 15% of GDP FIRE is 20% of GDP Healthcare is 20% of GDP Education is 5% of GDP None of the above industries can be considered "free market", yet they are 60% of the economy. The "free market" is thrashing around somewhere in the remaining 40%. But not really, because on the income side, Government spending is 44% of GDP (the difference between government spending and consumption is all the checks being mailed out). Private spending is basically only half. Thus half of all economic spending is being directed by politicians. Extreme free market? Moreover in the labor markets, we have an extremely regulated economy, in which 23% of US workers need a government license to legally do their job. Extreme free market?
imtringued 5y ago
>We can't sit around starving till then while paying people to do no work. I already suggested giving these people work instead of income.