(December 2, 2016 at 12:44 pm)alpha male Wrote:(December 2, 2016 at 12:23 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: Ah, no. You don't compensate people for making you poorer. In effect trump and pence has just became enablers of a crime of extortion in which each of these 1000 works are extorting $12,500 from the US economy, every year, in addition to the $7million the carrier corp has extorted from government tax receipt. Worse. The loot from the extortion is in effect being used to facilitate these workers' ability to avoid being retrained to be really productive, as oppose to doing make work and pretending to be contributing.
(December 2, 2016 at 12:28 pm)mihoda Wrote: Tell me, does your argument only apply to now or do you constantly worry about all the people around us who only have neolithic level tool use?
Do you go out of your way to drive a horse and buggy to keep only those with the 'natural ability' to make buggies employed?
The point to both of you is that, no, I don't think that all workers are capable of being trained to earn good work- or middle-class wages in an information economy, or whatever you want to call an American economy without manufacturing. As I said in my first post: "The problem is that you can't educate everyone in America for higher-tech jobs. Performance at those jobs isn't just a function of education, it also requires some amount of innate intelligence. There are people with adequate intelligence for manufacturing jobs, but not for higher-tech jobs. We're getting to be a white collar/hamburger flipper economy without a great middle ground."
For example, why hasn't Brian37 trained himself to be in a good position, instead of bitching about his poor fortunes on here?
So...what are you going to do for the people who just can't be competitive in such an economy? Write living wage laws? But you can't do that, as that would artificially increase prices for everyone, and you're apparently against that...at least when Trump does it.
(December 2, 2016 at 12:28 pm)mihoda Wrote: Do you go out of your way to drive a horse and buggy to keep only those with the 'natural ability' to make buggies employed?
What do you do for such people? Or are you going to say they don't really exist, thereby admitting to a straw man?
Do you think that there are people who do have the ability to build certain things, but may not have the ability to, say, program computers?
My comment about stone users was to draw attention to the fact that we *have no* large population of inherently unable people among us.
While it's entirely likely that there will be a future where most work is automated, I think that future undercuts your point severely. With a large population that is unable to engage in significant economic activity, redistribution of wealth is politically required or there will be revolution from either above (genocide) or below.
