I was really expecting a picture of our new FLOTUS with two black eyes because she flinched when he grabbed her by the pussy in front of Japan's leaders.
Actually it does. Prior to around 40 years back, China quite accurately reflected the social conditions Western Europe had prior to industrialisation. Namely an economy where most people were subsistence farmers. Now whilst hipsters seem to think that's like, 4 hours between coffees, it's actually closer to 18 hours a day of back breaking work and your kids being condemned to a similar life, and their kids... And so on. No real education, no capacity to afford social nets or decent medical care (so, break a leg, and it's a game of what kills you first, the infection or starvation), no advancement and a diet that primarily consists of the regional equivalent of flavoured gruel. If you're lucky, you grow enough spices to hide just what's in that gruel. Roll forward 40 years, and - thanks to sacrifices of their parents and grandparents - Chinese kids are getting education. The parents working shitty hours in shitty factories, get to have kids who manage those factories, or who go work abroad, or go become doctors... Millions of people no longer peasants. Kids with actual futures to choose, rather than a life of hard labour in the fields. I get very, very, very tired of people who think progress is this wonderful thing that happens by socially driven magic. It's not. It's a thing, an amoral avatar of entropy, and it brings gains and losses, but mostly net gains, and it demands a price for those gains. If your ancestors hadn't been willing to pay such prices, you wouldn't be musing on the internet, you'd be doing something like digging up turnips.
This has been true in the past, however our technology base was a lot lower. Historically, we've invented force multipliers which have then freed up people to move on to other physical labours or socially useful work. Need less people in the fields? You can now train people up to be nurses. And so on. As time has gone on, new industries have proliferated - hard to imagine the roles of "nail technician" or "pilates instructor" gaining much traction among the working class of the 1930's - but the socially useful aspects of those roles has become correspondingly more questionable and are more a function of increased wealth than anything else. Wages may have stagnated, but utility has gone through the roof, as money alone is not an arbiter of how "rich" we are. We're now at the point where we're starting to automate, not to create a force multiplier as such, but to replace people. It's an important nuance, and one with a lot of consequences. Just as we've seen an increase in roles, we've seen a faster acceleration of automation. At some point our capacity to automate will exceed our capacity to create new roles for people - don't forget any new role has to be conceived, proven as marketable and a sufficient source of workers to be trained up in it, if automation can remove that third aspect those new roles never become available to people. We're quite a way off replacing everyone, but we are close to being able to replace a significant amount of people and without the ability to absorb that number of people into the jobs market, and it's only going to get worse. Humans will never be replaced totally, but tomorrow's baristas and burger-flippers will be like the butlers of today.
Trump aims spotlight on local union chief after being corrected about what the Carrier deal means (link): Mr. Jones called Mr. Trump’s claim of more than 1,000 jobs preserved in Indiana “an out-and-out falsehood.” “I’m not naive enough to think he’s going to be a friend to the working class people,” Mr. Jones said, while adding that he was “grateful” that some jobs were preserved. The company confirmed it would retain only 730 union jobs and another 70 nonunion positions at Carrier’s gas furnace and fan coil plant in Indianapolis, Mr. Jones said. Some 550 of his members’ jobs would be sent to Mexico. On Twitter, Mr. Trump said Chuck Jones, who heads the United Steelworkers local at the Carrier plant, had done “a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!” In an interview Wednesday night, Mr. Jones acknowledged he has received threats since the Trump tweets, but said they “don’t bother me a whole hell of a lot.” In a second tweet Wednesday night, Mr. Trump said the union should reduce membership dues and “spend more time working-less time talking.” “If United Steelworkers 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana,” Mr. Trump wrote. The Donald is acting more mafia than presidential. Does anyone think it was the $7million in tax breaks over 10 years that swayed Carrier? Either way, do you think the union could have brought enough pressure to keep jobs in Indiana? What do you think, Dayton?
My lunch group has instituted a Trump Thursday rule. Basically if all we ever do is talk about the latest stupid/crazy thing Trump has said or done we won't ever discuss other issues, meaning we won't think of an solutions to any other issues, meaning Trump wins. I think this is a good policy in general. Trump will be the next President. He's going to keep doing stupid boneheaded things. No use working yourself up about it. Focus on mitigation at the local level and preparation for 2020.
Perfectly fine for Presidents to call out other politicians and/or public figures. But to smear a local union boss on Twitter endangers his safety. Disgusting behavior from a total ass clown.
No to the first part, the second part, or both? Explain yourself. I'm watching the Raiders game so use small words.
That's a nice idea, but the problem is not knowing how to make shoes. The problem is that shoe makers want to exploit labor, and can only do so in the third world. Add to that, most Americans have neither the money nor desire to pay for shoes that aren't made by exploited labor, and you end up where we are. I'm not in favor of exploiting labor, but I also don't want to see significant price inflation. Ultimately, these tasks will be done by robot, then who gets paid? The factory owner, a few designers, engineers, and a marketing team. If they want any consumers, they will need to find a way to spread that wealth. I just don't think it can or should involve paying high wages for low skilled, rote manufacturing work.
You have to understand these things in the context of the European left - people should be happy making things like shoes. The people aren't going to be asked about that, it is going to be decided by their equals who know better, and won't be the ones making the shoes, and will be running the show for those other equals. On the rare days the very equal peasants aren't slavingvaliantly feeding the country in their sovkhozes, they may be travelling to the city in the second class trains, while their equals running the place will be travelling in the equally equal first class, which is just like second class only differently so in the interests of everyone being equal. The European left has it's own brand of batshit crazy that, somehow, manages to eclipse the right by dint of being actually well meant, usually because they'd never be seen dead in the company of the very people they claim to represent. Basically they're a load of Bob Geldof's, not worthy of hatred, but certainly deserve a condescending pat on the head.
This just get's more Presidential by the day: https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...94a21c44abc_story.html?utm_term=.a7925f8e1f8e
I've never watched The Apprentice. Never had a desire to. Does it have anything going for it? Celebrity Apprentice?
^^Executive producer is pretty much a made-up title anyway, it exists almost purely as a way of agents getting their clients more money. Just look at Mark Harmon's credits with the NCIS franchise... And hey, those cheques may just may for the Trumptastic Mexican't Wall!
from wiki... After Trump announced his intentions to run for President of the United States in the 2016 election in 2015, NBC began to re-evaluate their business relationship with Trump and whether he could still be host of The Apprentice series.[6] NBC stated that they opted to sever their business ties with Trump following politically-charged comments that Trump made in June 2015, and began seeking a new host for the show.[7] However, Trump stated that it was his decision to end the relationship with NBC "out of respect", even though he had been approached by Burnett and NBC to host two more seasons of the show just prior to his presidential bid.[8] In an April 2016 interview, Trump revealed he earned about $213 million from the show over its 14 seasons.[9] In September 2015, NBC announced that actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger would become the new host of The Celebrity Apprentice to premiere during the 2016–17 television season.[10] The rebooted series, The New Celebrity Apprentice is set to first broadcast January 2, 2017.[11] Trump will remain credited as an Executive Producer to the show, including what is estimated as a five-figure per-show fee as well as ongoing profits from the franchise through MGM, the production entity for the show.[12] Sounds like he got fired. yes... yes he did.
Literally nothing. And that's coming from someone who isn't completely opposed to "reality" tv. I still watch survivor. Jeff probst for prez!!!
Yep, was just about to post that. Can you say entanglement? Let me count the ways: Gets paid for doing nothing; by a media conglomerate interested in favorable treatment by networks; for a show that airs on a network Trump often criticizes; that can be heavily influenced by fines and other licensure issues by the FCC, which Trump will soon control.
The way I see it, we're headed for a post-Globalized-world whether that's where we want to go or not. As I was saying before, one way or another the present world is unsustainable. So we're effing well going to have to learn to do this stuff again. Well, apparently a shitload of Americans just voted for Donald Trump under the misapprehension that he's going to bring Real Jobs back for them. Because they currently don't have any money. And they don't have any money because local manufacturing has disappeared (in the rustbucket states that apparently made the difference in the election). And here's a question: Why does a pair of shoes that probably cost two or maybe even four bucks to make cost you what they do? Something's far wrong with this system. Somebody's making big bucks for nothing at all. See above. Well, as I pointed out in post #11, there are worse things than rote work. Such as no work. You're certainly right that wealth redistribution is an urgent problem, especially in the US. One thing that wouldn't go amiss is massive worldwide population reduction. If we don't do it we're going to get it, bigtime, anyway --- whether we desire it or not.
I'm not sure that a case has been made to see it that way. You seem to take it on faith, then go from there. Less than 25% of eligible voters, actually. And if that's why they voted for him, then they aren't going to get what they bought. If the cost to manufacture a shoe is less than $10 (no idea, just going with that suggestion), then the people skimming the other $80 from the purchase price aren't likely to just give some of that back. If there is a surplus of capital generated by manufacturing, we need to figure out how to better use that capital. I don't think subsidizing inefficient production is the best use, any more than I think yachts for the industrialist class is the best use. And why strive for just that? We have tons of resources that happen to be misdirected. We can do better that placing people back on the assembly line. Let's instead train people in more modern economic purposes, and provide a minimum level of income and social benefits so that somebody has a bit more room to make a choice about his line of work. Not sure I agree with that, either. Malthus was demonstrably wrong.
I don't think training people in marketing or project management will work for an aging population in the rust/coal-belts. Nor do I think having them make shoes is a solution. What else is there? I floated guaranteed minimum income (or universal basic income) up thread. It's getting support from both political sides. One striking thing about guaranteeing a basic income is that it’s always had support both on the left and on the right—albeit for different reasons. Martin Luther King embraced the idea, but so did the right-wing economist Milton Friedman, while the Nixon Administration even tried to get a basic-income guarantee through Congress. These days, among younger thinkers on the left, the U.B.I. is seen as a means to ending poverty, combatting rising inequality, and liberating workers from the burden of crappy jobs. For thinkers on the right, the U.B.I. seems like a simpler, and more libertarian, alternative to the thicket of anti-poverty and social-welfare programs. A basic income would not be cheap—depending on how the program was structured, it would likely cost at least twelve to thirteen per cent of G.D.P. And, given the state of American politics, that renders the U.B.I. politically impossible for the time Here is a more balanced discussion on the topic: Fans of the basic income make plenty of good arguments. A welfare system riddled with complicated means-testing distorts incentives and is a headache to run. Paine’s intellectual case for all citizens to be entitled to a return on the bounties of the earth is compelling. But a basic income is too costly and inefficient to act as a wholesale replacement for welfare. It is feasible only if it is small, and complemented by more targeted anti-poverty measures. Basic income: the clue is in the name.
Well, we'll see, won't we? The world population of the two-million-year-old homo-sapiens species has tripled in my lifetime. The ice caps and glaciers are melting like crazy. I wouldn't bet too much on long-term human survival. Whereupon the question of local shoe production will be uhh.. kinda moot. I totally agree. They are doing it. It has to stop. For what? No work?? I most certainly didn't say we should. I agree absolutely. How so?
I've frequently cheerleaded for a UBI, albeit one where there is a tie in that you need to be doing something. I've seen in the UK the utter disconnect with society, and it's consequences, when people are able to afford to simply sit in front of the telly 24/7 with cheap booze or weed. It's not pretty, and it's the kind of poverty of the mind that needs tackling. Many who love to witter on about companies giving back to society via taxation seem to be sadly happy to give the poor and unemployed a pass on doing the same, for a group who so passionately hate market capitalism they only seem to be able to comprehend such giving back to society only in terms of money, which is pretty sad. By tying the UBI into doing something - could be cleaning up graffiti or rubbish, listening to an elderly person for a hour or so - you can do a lot to improve social cohesion, intellectual poverty, understanding minority issues and social disengagement.
Are you suggesting we essentially invent jobs in order to give people a functioning role in society? I assume the UBI argument is premised on the idea that the cost to the taxpayer of those on benefits would somehow be funneled into job creation and wages (where the jobs are public sector)?
The planet clearly sustains far more people than he thought possible. Here are some articles: https://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/12/12/why-malthus-got-his-forecast-wrong/ http://www.economist.com/node/11374623 And more recently: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-malthus-is-still-wrong/ But I mostly meant that in a metaphorical sense. There may well be a theoretical limit to what natural resources leveraged by technology can support, albeit much higher than he calculated. I don't think we are anywhere close to that point right now, though. Our problems with resource allocation are distributive, not scarcity.
No. The UBI itself would replace all benefits bar disability and housing, the catch being that to 'earn' it, you must be employed, on an educational course or volunteering in some manner. The arrangement of the voluntary work could be done by government, charity, community centres... A concrete Big Society, rather than the hastily forgotten and nebulous one the Hug-a-Hoodie sect of the Tories came up with. Funding the UBI would be somewhat problematic, but if it was restricted to UK citizens and the current benefits structure was mothballed, with housing and disability spun out, we'd get a sizeable percentage of the funding there. Of course of the government stopped being so useless with IT, we could probably give everyone a frigging Ferrari for Christmas.
