This is where I stop believing Obama is possibly a rational, intelligent man.

[Anonymous]

http://absurdresults.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/obama-stop-the-rise-of-the-machines/

...is there are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers . . . . If you see it when you go to a bank you use the ATM, you don’t go to a bank teller.

This reminds me of time when people were against lightbulbs because it would put candle workers out of business. I'm sorry you would prefer unskilled production over skilled technicians building our new tomorrow. However, I cannot empathize with your will to destroy wealth creation by making less efficient businesses in the name of putting more people to work in practically useless jobs. You don't like humanity, you don't like meeting needs, you just like putting numbers on paper.

I cannot believe any rational man would nearly advocate the dissolution of technology and wealth in the name of just pure numbers employment. It sickens me.

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[benjamindees]

Seriously the guy is a retard.  The fact that he was the best choice is just proof positive that the US has jumped the shark and is busy doing one-eighties until it runs out of momentum and sinks.

The Fed and the US government have literally sold out the country to foreign banks and immigrants and now according to them the reason for 10% unemployment is that American businesses are just too darn efficient and we all need to go back to rubbing sticks together and making cave paintings.

[AyeYo]

That's a complete misrepresentation of what he's saying.


The "structural issues" are that many of the unemployed are not getting their jobs back because those jobs were lost to machines, not a bad economy.  That's a structure issue.  He's not saying that evolving technology is an issue. 

[Anonymous]

That's a complete misrepresentation of what he's saying.


The "structural issues" are that many of the unemployed are not getting their jobs back because those jobs were lost to machines, not a bad economy.  That's a structure issue.  He's not saying that evolving technology is an issue. 

The fact he thinks it's an issue -- structural or whatever -- is the issue.

[tehcodez]

That's a complete misrepresentation of what he's saying.


The "structural issues" are that many of the unemployed are not getting their jobs back because those jobs were lost to machines, not a bad economy.  That's a structure issue.  He's not saying that evolving technology is an issue.  

The fact he thinks it's an issue -- structural or whatever -- is the issue.

And the fact you don't is the bigger issue.

Productivity, via this awesome technology, has not been FORMALLY factored into labor-related issues. See "Productivity Paradox."

Put it this way (and the way AyeYo puts it), say I make some awesome critically-thinking Watson like AI. From that point on, you're useless. What are you going to do then?

He is different from you. You don't get it, where he knows something's gotta happen (and he knows it'll make your Grandma cry).

[benjamindees]

Capitalism works just fine in a closed system with a functional government, even with zero growth.  Unfortunately:

1) We don't have a functional government.  Millions of new consumers walk across the border every year without the resources to sustain themselves.  Externalities such as population growth and resource depletion are encouraged rather than governed.

2) We don't have capitalism.  We have corporatism, in which centralization, risk, and instability are subsidized rather than regulated.

3) We don't have zero growth.  We have forced growth through debt-based currency, fraudulent fractional reserve banking, and taxpayer-theft-subsidized make-work.

[AyeYo]

Capitalism works just fine in a closed system

That makes about as much sense as saying jumping off cliffs and flying works just fine in a universe with no gravity.

Everything works just fine under laboratory controlled conditions... but we don't live in a laboratory.

[Basiley]

how can beleive thats someone beleives[at once]thats one[or anyone want/able to be politician] of politicians suddenly become rational, intelligent man, become rational and intelligent ?

[benjamindees]

Capitalism works just fine with a functional government, even in a closed system with zero growth.

Is that better?  I didn't mean to imply that openness was a limiting factor.  It works in an open system too;  it just requires an even more capable government.  So I thought I'd set the bar a bit lower.

[Bimmerhead]

Everything works just fine under laboratory controlled conditions... but we don't live in a laboratory.

Cuba is pretty much a closed system (except for all the European and Canadian companies interfering).  That lab experiment isn't working out so well, though it is working out as predicted.

[Anonymous]

Capitalism works just fine in a closed system

That makes about as much sense as saying jumping off cliffs and flying works just fine in a universe with no gravity.

Everything works just fine under laboratory controlled conditions... but we don't live in a laboratory.

We need to be viewing these things as a social science. People aren't variables that can be easily controlled.

[benjamindees]

If government intervenes too much such as by introducing laws that makes corporations more inefficient to ensure that people have jobs even though their contributions are not needed, then it isn't really capitalism anymore, but closer to market socialism.

That's true, but it's also not what I suggested.  It's a common mistake for libertarian-types to equate government with interference in the holy free market.  The free market would just as soon have you sold off into slavery at birth.  There is a place for government action (collective or otherwise) in order to repel the initiation of force by individuals.

[Bimmerhead]

There is a place for government action (collective or otherwise) in order to repel the initiation of force by individuals.

That is exactly what lots of libertarians think government is for, and only for.

[benjamindees]

That is exactly what lots of libertarians think government is for, and only for.

Unfortunately most fail to recognize the initiation of force in some of its most insidious forms.

[MoonShadow]

I cannot believe any rational man would nearly advocate the dissolution of technology and wealth in the name of just pure numbers employment. It sickens me.

And your screen name reminds me of the most absurd critique of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged was that the characters, particularly the villians, were just absurd.

[AyeYo]

Capitalism works just fine with a functional government, even in a closed system with zero growth.

Is that better?  I didn't mean to imply that openness was a limiting factor.  It works in an open system too;  it just requires an even more capable government.  So I thought I'd set the bar a bit lower.

No.  And to say it requires capable government is laughable, because free market capitalism is all about castrating government until it's doing literally nothing other than guaranteeing profits for the capitalists.

Pure capitalism has not existed anywhere, ever.  Pure capitalism is not a sustainable system (because it eventually transfers all wealth to the top), which is why it will never exist anywhere, ever.  If you'd like to see the closest examples of free market capitalism that have existed anywhere in the world, look at the examples of post-coup South American countries, especially Chile.  That free market experiment didn't work out too well, unless you were one of the elite wealthy folk.



No country on this planet is a closed system, Cuba included.  We live in an interconnected and complex world; no one is an island unto themselves.  If you think Cuba is failing due to its economic system choices, then perhaps you forgot about the embargos and Cuba's history.

[Anonymous]

Capitalism works just fine with a functional government, even in a closed system with zero growth.

Is that better?  I didn't mean to imply that openness was a limiting factor.  It works in an open system too;  it just requires an even more capable government.  So I thought I'd set the bar a bit lower.

No.  And to say it requires capable government is laughable, because free market capitalism is all about castrating government until it's doing literally nothing other than guaranteeing profits for the capitalists.

Pure capitalism has not existed anywhere, ever.  Pure capitalism is not a sustainable system (because it eventually transfers all wealth to the top), which is why it will never exist anywhere, ever.  If you'd like to see the closest examples of free market capitalism that have existed anywhere in the world, look at the examples of post-coup South American countries, especially Chile.  That free market experiment didn't work out too well, unless you were one of the elite wealthy folk.

No country on this planet is a closed system, Cuba included.  We live in an interconnected and complex world; no one is an island unto themselves.  If you think Cuba is failing due to its economic system choices, then perhaps you forgot about the embargos and Cuba's history.

The only example of free-market capitalism I've seen is pre-1920s America and it was pretty prosperous.

[AyeYo]

Capitalism works just fine with a functional government, even in a closed system with zero growth.

Is that better?  I didn't mean to imply that openness was a limiting factor.  It works in an open system too;  it just requires an even more capable government.  So I thought I'd set the bar a bit lower.

No.  And to say it requires capable government is laughable, because free market capitalism is all about castrating government until it's doing literally nothing other than guaranteeing profits for the capitalists.

Pure capitalism has not existed anywhere, ever.  Pure capitalism is not a sustainable system (because it eventually transfers all wealth to the top), which is why it will never exist anywhere, ever.  If you'd like to see the closest examples of free market capitalism that have existed anywhere in the world, look at the examples of post-coup South American countries, especially Chile.  That free market experiment didn't work out too well, unless you were one of the elite wealthy folk.

No country on this planet is a closed system, Cuba included.  We live in an interconnected and complex world; no one is an island unto themselves.  If you think Cuba is failing due to its economic system choices, then perhaps you forgot about the embargos and Cuba's history.

The only example of free-market capitalism I've seen is pre-1920s America and it was pretty prosperous.

LOL  Yea, the good old days of child labor, expendable workers (literally, just work them to death), no safety regulations, polution all over the place, unemployment so high people were literally killing each other for a job - all of which culminated in the Great Depression...  a real wonderland it was.

And let's allow wiki to give us a quick recap of just how free market the "roaring" '20's were:

By the turn of the century, a middle class had developed that was leery of both the business elite and the somewhat radical political movements of farmers and laborers in the Midwest and West. Known as Progressives, these people favored government regulation of business practices to, in their minds, ensure competition and free enterprise. Congress enacted a law regulating railroads in 1887 (the Interstate Commerce Act), and one preventing large firms from controlling a single industry in 1890 (the Sherman Antitrust Act). These laws were not rigorously enforced, however, until the years between 1900 and 1920, when Republican President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909), Democratic President Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921), and others sympathetic to the views of the Progressives came to power. Many of today's U.S. regulatory agencies were created during these years, including the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. Muckrakers were journalists who encouraged readers to demand more regulation of business. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle (1906) showed America the horrors of the Chicago Union Stock Yards, a giant complex of meat processing that developed in the 1870s. The federal government responded to Sinclair's book with the new regulatory Food and Drug Administration. Ida M. Tarbell wrote a series of articles against the Standard Oil monopoly. The series helped pave the way for the breakup of the monopoly.[40]
 
When Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected President with a Democratic Congress in 1912 he implemented a series of progressive policies. In 1913, the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified, and the income tax was instituted in the United States.

So, yea, those roaring '20's were definitely a free market utopia of no government interference.





This occasionally makes rounds on the interent, it was obviously written towards people like you...

This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity
generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the U.S. Department of
Energy.

I then took a shower in the clean water provided by a municipal water
utility.

After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC-regulated channels to see
what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like,
using satellites designed, built, and launched by the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration.

I watched this while eating my breakfast of U.S. Department of
Agriculture-inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined
as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

At the appropriate time, as regulated by the U.S. Congress and kept
accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the
U.S. Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration-approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built
by the local, state, and federal Departments of Transportation, possibly
stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the
Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal
Reserve Bank.

On the way out the door I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the
U.S. Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.

After spending another day not being maimed or killed at work thanks to
the workplace regulations imposed by the Department of Labor and the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, enjoying another two meals
which again do not kill me because of the USDA, I drive my NHTSA car back
home on the DOT roads, to my house which has not burned down in my absence
because of the state and local building codes and Fire Marshal's
inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables, thanks
to the local police department.

And then I log on to the internet -- which was developed by the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Administration -- and post on Freerepublic.com
and Fox News forums about how SOCIALISM in medicine is BAD because the
government can't do anything right.

It sure was prosperous... if you were in the top 1%.

[Anonymous]

Those people were not forced to work those jobs. They did because it provided far better opportunity than they had. Every developing country goes through that stage. It's inevitable and natural.

The Great Depression was caused and continued by the New Deal policies and similar regulations.

[Anonymous]

Please note the "pre".