Trickle Down

[Lootifer]

Mmmm, job evolution isn't my main concern though, in fact job evolution is great!

My slight concern is a result of changes to the utility (or value) of hard work vs. the utility of capital.

Traditionally the main source of upward/downward mobility was hard-work/laziness. However with more automation the relative value of hard-work vs. using money to make money (aka using capital) is changing: you can achieve less with hard-work, and more with capital.

This isn't a fundamental problem, as utility is being increased overall (and as per previous posts, quality of life is increasing). However, it does imply that a widening gap between the wealthy and the non-wealthy. And the reason this concerns me is because the wealthy tend to be the powerful/ruling class, and have significant control over political, environmental and commercial landscapes - I simply don't trust the wealthy to do a good job here as the skill set required to do a good job in these places are not the same as those required to generate wealth.

[patches70]

I doubt automation has little to do with it, IMO.

In the days before there was any real automation there were wide gaps between wealthy and non-wealthy and the wealthy in those days treated everyone else as virtual slaves. Serfs, indentured servants and actual slaves. The land owners and nobility of the middle ages for instance, they were the ones who had all the money, all the power and suffering was rampant.

The more automated we get the less influence the rich have on the rest of us, IMO.

For instance, one needs to have a job to pay the mortgage/rent, put food on the table, keep warm in the winter, keep cool in the summer, entertainment, etc etc. The more automated the more plentiful all those things are and in theory, cheaper.

I don't trust the ruling class either, I'm not sure anyone does unless they have an agenda in which they'll use the ruling class to get something done. This isn't just special interests of corporations, bankers, and just rich people, but also of groups of often well meaning but short sighted average Joe's being enlisted into various "causes" in which all these average Joe's are convinced to go crying to the very ruling class to solve some problem that in the end truly benefits certain wealthy individuals mostly and rarely solves said problem.

You don't trust the ruling elites, but all too often the very people who say they don't trust these ruling elites are the first one's to go crying to the ruling elites to fix some social issue in the name of "social justice". These people are doing just as much harm as anyone else and are contributing to your stated concerns.

You are also, though I'm not sure you realize, railing against the fiat currency system that virtually every single nation on the planet uses today.
"Loot:However with more automation the relative value of hard-work vs. using money to make money (aka using capital) is changing: you can achieve less with hard-work, and more with capital."

This isn't really true. Even with more automation hard work is valuable. As valuable as it's ever been in the history of the world. You got sweat shops in China where there are people working their fucking asses to death and companies like Apple who use this labor are the most valuable companies in the world. These companies provide products and services that today's society would grind to a halt without. I'd say that's pretty valuable.
But the use of Capital has changed, you are right about that. There is a difference between real wealth and paper wealth. For instance, if you have skills that are absolutely essential then you are good to go. The more work you do the better off you become (as well as those for whom you provide your skills and expertise). Anything short of full blown destruction of civilization, those skills are always valuable.
On the other hand, you have the wealthy, the ruling elite, with lots of paper wealth. All that can be wiped out in an instant when the economic conditions change. You have central banks that determine the value of currency arbitrarily which makes Stocks, bonds, all inflated in value but it isn't real. It's the same illusion that the politicians employ trying to convince everyone that we need them in power or else society would collapse or other such doomsday scenarios we are bombarded with on a daily basis.

And when these people get wiped out in the economic downturns they turn to the ruling elites and secure bailouts. You can't blame them for that, after all aren't people petitioning the ruling elites for all types of things? You can't say that these people have no right to petition the ruling class for help when every single Joe Shmoe Social Justice Warrior is doing the exact same fucking thing, petitioning the ruling elite to legislate on pet peeves/ If the average schmuck and can do this then the average schmuck ain't got a God damn thing to say about the rich asshole who lost his ass in the stock market begging the ruling elite for help can they?

Most of these career politicians who are in partnership with the central banks and the wealthy elite whom you don't trust often don't have any real skills that would be practical outside of government and making everyone do what they say. They'd never make in the private sector because they don't have to produce anything, do any real work or create actual, tangible wealth. They live by stealing the wealth from those of us who work through inflation, deflation and currency manipulation and use willing pawns among the citizenry under the guise of "social justice" to name one.

It's ridiculous. But it's not innovation, automation, learning to do thing better and more efficiently that is supposedly widening the wealth gap, those things all do the exact opposite IMO.
It's criminal, thieving, manipulating central banks and politicians and all the useful idiots who are willing to turn straight to the ruling elite for whatever the current social justice fad of the day is that are doing it. The wealthy are only looking out for their own best interests by getting in bed with the politicians, you'd likely do the exact same in their shoes and you'd convince yourself you're "helping" society and your fellow man and if you make a few more bucks on the side, then so much the better!

The simple, general rule of thumb is-
If one finds one's self when confronted by some perceived injustice and one's first instinct is "there ought to be a law!", then one is contributing to the very things in which you raised concerns in the above post, IMO.

These are the assholes who are fucking everything up because they give the political elite the power to rob and thieve for the benefit of the banks and ultra-wealthy.
After all, if you are some rich fucktard who is about to go bankrupt because you gambled in risky financial capital decisions then you might feel that this is a great "injustice" and therefore are completely justified in petitioning the political elite for help, just like the fucktard SJW's that are doing the exact same thing except for their own perceived "injustices".


TLDR- "Loot:wealthy tend to be the powerful/ruling class, and have significant control over political, environmental and commercial landscapes - I simply don't trust the wealthy to do a good job here as the skill set required to do a good job in these places are not the same as those required to generate wealth.


Patches: "And where do you think these powerful/ruling class elites get their power from? From average citizens who's first instinct is to always go running straight to the powerful/ruling elite class to solve all their problems for them instead of figuring out these things for themselves."

[mrswdk]

THERE IS A SPECTRE HAUNTING EUROPE

[Dukasaur]

THERE IS A SPECTRE HAUNTING EUROPE

You hate Daniel Craig?

[tzor]

In the days before there was any real automation there were wide gaps between wealthy and non-wealthy and the wealthy in those days treated everyone else as virtual slaves. Serfs, indentured servants and actual slaves. The land owners and nobility of the middle ages for instance, they were the ones who had all the money, all the power and suffering was rampant.

Economics is complicated because it cannot be separated from the overall society. While I don't want to make the feudal society seem like a wonderful time, i am also reminded of Benjamin Franklin's quote, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." The whole concept of the feudal society was doing just that, giving up liberty in order to be under the safety of a military commander who was in turn given the land as a payment for military service to the ruling authority.

Having all the money, is an odd concept in the years before capitalism. They had the power because they had the military might needed to secure the peace. It is ironic that the poorest person in the United States today probably lives far better than the greatest Feudal lord of the middle ages.

But that's neither here nor there. Let's look at TECHNOLOGY in the more modern era under the principles that fueled the age of enlightenment. Slavery was a horrible institution, especially for the slave, but it wasn't all that wonderful for the slave owner either. Many of the slave holding founding fathers died in bankruptcy due to the economic problems of an export agriculture society. (Washington was the exception, but he raised wheat, which in bad times was converted to whiskey and kept in storage.) The slavery system of growing tobacco wasn't effective. It was only the invention of the cotton gin that allowed the salves to process cotton in enough quantities that it became really profitable that the slave owners became richer.

Technology didn't just make the slave's life miserable because of the potential slave's exploitation. The whole industrial era was filled with examples of companies exploiting cheap labor who could man the machines. But eventually you reach a crossover point, machines no longer need cheap labor in order to function. You don't need slaves to pick the cotton to feed into the gin. This in general results in the unemployment of the underemployed, who in turn can then compete for real jobs. But it also raises the bar for everyone. In the middle ages, reading and writing wasn't a prerequisite, today it is a necessity.

Today you don't need a man going from the back of the train to the front turning the brake wheels one by one in order to stop the train. Conductors can collect ticket fares through credit card on the spot, but you don't even need that if you use a card based system where people have to swipe a card entering and/or exiting the terminals (or they could just use their cellphones). The death of the really mind numbingly boring job is the result of technology.

[Lootifer]

TLDR- "Loot:wealthy tend to be the powerful/ruling class, and have significant control over political, environmental and commercial landscapes - I simply don't trust the wealthy to do a good job here as the skill set required to do a good job in these places are not the same as those required to generate wealth.


Patches: "And where do you think these powerful/ruling class elites get their power from? From average citizens who's first instinct is to always go running straight to the powerful/ruling elite class to solve all their problems for them instead of figuring out these things for themselves."

Exactly - well kind of, I would phrase it as "And where do you think these powerful/ruling class elites get their power from? From average citizens who are fundamentally ill equipped to face the challenges/requirements of modern societal administration."

More to come....

[mrswdk]

'Average citizens' have proven themselves capable of effecting institutional change when the systems involved in their lives are structured in such a way as to enable intolerable levels of exploitation and rent-seeking over productive enterprise. The various uprisings, campaigns and individual protests that have transformed the UK from an absolute monarchy to a representative democracy operating under the rule of law were generally instigated by the people who were losing out under any given system, not by the wealthy and powerful who benefited from them.

The US election was very nearly a contest between two outsiders who were both hijacking established political parties on the back of popular support in order to push a bunch of fairly radical policies, and anti-Establishment political parties have gained pretty significant momentum in a lot of European countries (the UK, France, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Italy all spring to mind). If people really feel that the systems around them are not working and they can see a better alternative, they will push those systems to change.

However with more automation the relative value of hard-work vs. using money to make money (aka using capital) is changing: you can achieve less with hard-work, and more with capital.

Investing capital wisely is a full-time job, and one that if done well ensures that capital is channeled away from unproductive enterprise and into productive enterprise, thereby enabling the productive enterprise to occur in the first place.

[Bernie Sanders]

I doubt automation has little to do with it, IMO.

In the days before there was any real automation there were wide gaps between wealthy and non-wealthy and the wealthy in those days treated everyone else as virtual slaves. Serfs, indentured servants and actual slaves. The land owners and nobility of the middle ages for instance, they were the ones who had all the money, all the power and suffering was rampant.

The more automated we get the less influence the rich have on the rest of us, IMO.

For instance, one needs to have a job to pay the mortgage/rent, put food on the table, keep warm in the winter, keep cool in the summer, entertainment, etc etc. The more automated the more plentiful all those things are and in theory, cheaper.

I don't trust the ruling class either, I'm not sure anyone does unless they have an agenda in which they'll use the ruling class to get something done. This isn't just special interests of corporations, bankers, and just rich people, but also of groups of often well meaning but short sighted average Joe's being enlisted into various "causes" in which all these average Joe's are convinced to go crying to the very ruling class to solve some problem that in the end truly benefits certain wealthy individuals mostly and rarely solves said problem.

You don't trust the ruling elites, but all too often the very people who say they don't trust these ruling elites are the first one's to go crying to the ruling elites to fix some social issue in the name of "social justice". These people are doing just as much harm as anyone else and are contributing to your stated concerns.

You are also, though I'm not sure you realize, railing against the fiat currency system that virtually every single nation on the planet uses today.
"Loot:However with more automation the relative value of hard-work vs. using money to make money (aka using capital) is changing: you can achieve less with hard-work, and more with capital."

This isn't really true. Even with more automation hard work is valuable. As valuable as it's ever been in the history of the world. You got sweat shops in China where there are people working their fucking asses to death and companies like Apple who use this labor are the most valuable companies in the world. These companies provide products and services that today's society would grind to a halt without. I'd say that's pretty valuable.
But the use of Capital has changed, you are right about that. There is a difference between real wealth and paper wealth. For instance, if you have skills that are absolutely essential then you are good to go. The more work you do the better off you become (as well as those for whom you provide your skills and expertise). Anything short of full blown destruction of civilization, those skills are always valuable.
On the other hand, you have the wealthy, the ruling elite, with lots of paper wealth. All that can be wiped out in an instant when the economic conditions change. You have central banks that determine the value of currency arbitrarily which makes Stocks, bonds, all inflated in value but it isn't real. It's the same illusion that the politicians employ trying to convince everyone that we need them in power or else society would collapse or other such doomsday scenarios we are bombarded with on a daily basis.

And when these people get wiped out in the economic downturns they turn to the ruling elites and secure bailouts. You can't blame them for that, after all aren't people petitioning the ruling elites for all types of things? You can't say that these people have no right to petition the ruling class for help when every single Joe Shmoe Social Justice Warrior is doing the exact same fucking thing, petitioning the ruling elite to legislate on pet peeves/ If the average schmuck and can do this then the average schmuck ain't got a God damn thing to say about the rich asshole who lost his ass in the stock market begging the ruling elite for help can they?

Most of these career politicians who are in partnership with the central banks and the wealthy elite whom you don't trust often don't have any real skills that would be practical outside of government and making everyone do what they say. They'd never make in the private sector because they don't have to produce anything, do any real work or create actual, tangible wealth. They live by stealing the wealth from those of us who work through inflation, deflation and currency manipulation and use willing pawns among the citizenry under the guise of "social justice" to name one.

It's ridiculous. But it's not innovation, automation, learning to do thing better and more efficiently that is supposedly widening the wealth gap, those things all do the exact opposite IMO.
It's criminal, thieving, manipulating central banks and politicians and all the useful idiots who are willing to turn straight to the ruling elite for whatever the current social justice fad of the day is that are doing it. The wealthy are only looking out for their own best interests by getting in bed with the politicians, you'd likely do the exact same in their shoes and you'd convince yourself you're "helping" society and your fellow man and if you make a few more bucks on the side, then so much the better!

The simple, general rule of thumb is-
If one finds one's self when confronted by some perceived injustice and one's first instinct is "there ought to be a law!", then one is contributing to the very things in which you raised concerns in the above post, IMO.

These are the assholes who are fucking everything up because they give the political elite the power to rob and thieve for the benefit of the banks and ultra-wealthy.
After all, if you are some rich fucktard who is about to go bankrupt because you gambled in risky financial capital decisions then you might feel that this is a great "injustice" and therefore are completely justified in petitioning the political elite for help, just like the fucktard SJW's that are doing the exact same thing except for their own perceived "injustices".


TLDR- "Loot:wealthy tend to be the powerful/ruling class, and have significant control over political, environmental and commercial landscapes - I simply don't trust the wealthy to do a good job here as the skill set required to do a good job in these places are not the same as those required to generate wealth.


Patches: "And where do you think these powerful/ruling class elites get their power from? From average citizens who's first instinct is to always go running straight to the powerful/ruling elite class to solve all their problems for them instead of figuring out these things for themselves."

Thank you for your support of economic fairness.

[mrswdk]

Says Bernie, who joins us today thanks to the internet he recently had installed in his third home worth $600,000!

[Lootifer]

'Average citizens' have proven themselves capable of effecting institutional change when the systems involved in their lives are structured in such a way as to enable intolerable levels of exploitation and rent-seeking over productive enterprise. The various uprisings, campaigns and individual protests that have transformed the UK from an absolute monarchy to a representative democracy operating under the rule of law were generally instigated by the people who were losing out under any given system, not by the wealthy and powerful who benefited from them.

The US election was very nearly a contest between two outsiders who were both hijacking established political parties on the back of popular support in order to push a bunch of fairly radical policies, and anti-Establishment political parties have gained pretty significant momentum in a lot of European countries (the UK, France, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Italy all spring to mind). If people really feel that the systems around them are not working and they can see a better alternative, they will push those systems to change.

However with more automation the relative value of hard-work vs. using money to make money (aka using capital) is changing: you can achieve less with hard-work, and more with capital.

Investing capital wisely is a full-time job, and one that if done well ensures that capital is channeled away from unproductive enterprise and into productive enterprise, thereby enabling the productive enterprise to occur in the first place.

I disagree with nothing in your post.

We are getting quite good at influencing people without those same people knowing they are being influenced though...