[vtsnowedin]

That one is easy VT. You calculate how many workers robot X replaces. Then you add up the income taxes, medicare/medicaide/SSI taxes those workers would have paid working three shifts. Then you charge that number to the robot owner as an annual tax replacing the lost government tax revenue.

Not easy at all. First you have to choose a starting point in a technology that has been changing from day one. Is your point Henry Ford's 1927 model A assembly line Or GM's 1990 Silverado line? Or Toyota's 2020 Camry line? Then that calculation of how many humans the robot replaces is possible but not easy. Perhaps you would look at total labor cost per vehicle in your new line divided by average wage as compared to the starting point lines figures. Then if you set the tax too high you make domestic autos non competitive unless you impose offsetting import duties on imported autos.
Remember all taxes will actually be paid by the customers ie. you and I, not the corporations or it's executives as they will roll any taxes into the price of their products.

[Outcast_Searcher]

That one is easy VT. You calculate how many workers robot X replaces. Then you add up the income taxes, medicare/medicaide/SSI taxes those workers would have paid working three shifts. Then you charge that number to the robot owner as an annual tax replacing the lost government tax revenue.

Not easy at all. First you have to choose a starting point in a technology that has been changing from day one. Is your point Henry Ford's 1927 model A assembly line Or GM's 1990 Silverado line? Or Toyota's 2020 Camry line? Then that calculation of how many humans the robot replaces is possible but not easy. Perhaps you would look at total labor cost per vehicle in your new line divided by average wage as compared to the starting point lines figures. Then if you set the tax too high you make domestic autos non competitive unless you impose offsetting import duties on imported autos.
Remember all taxes will actually be paid by the customers ie. you and I, not the corporations or it's executives as they will roll any taxes into the price of their products.

First, just like there are indices for all kinds of economic variables which adjust as technology changes, there would need to be one or more robotic indices that would give some idea using some sort of objective standard for how many humans are being replaced per robot of class X. Then those indices could be adjusted periodically, perhaps annually, to reflect the state of robotics for a given industry, profession, etc. at that time.

That's an example of something government tends to do reasonably well, re keep track of statistics, measure things, etc. And since government collects the taxes, it's appropriate that they do that work.

Second, all taxes should be set at an appropriate level. There's nothing special about robot taxes in that regard, so that's not a valid issue against robot taxes.

Given that the robot doesn't get sick, doesn't goof off, doesn't skip work to deal with a bad mood, etc. the employer is still better off even if they have to pay ALL the taxes that the human would pay who the robot displaces. That would be a good amount to start with, per Tanada's suggestion, but that could evolve as revenue needs evolve.

Third, and this is key -- to the extent that smart robots displace a huge set of workers who then can't get viable work (are rendered obsolete), to ignore the problem is to basically tell the workers to exist only on shrinking government handouts (as the tax base shrinks as workers become obsolete). Until what, they mostly starve to death or die from exposure, etc? Given how people now riot and demonstrate over minor things, how much of THAT will be able to occur before you have a problem too big to contemplate? So just ignoring the issue until it blows up in our face is a TERRIBLE idea (though it is how the US approaches a LOT of governing in recent years and even decades).

And finally, yes, taxes are all paid by people. Including corporate taxes, and robot taxes companies own. Liberals who try to deny this are either deluding themselves or trying to game some issue agenda, but taxes aren't paid by magical entities or nothing, they're paid by people, and the vast majority of people are ordinary consumers.

But so what? Either something should be done by government or it shouldn't. And the revenues for government come from taxes. So the fact that people pay taxes doesn't change the issue of robot taxes, re whether they should exist.

[vtsnowedin]

To discuss the details of a problem is not to dismiss the problem. Without going into the details and actually finding solutions that actually work given all the facts you will have no progress.
I find your presumption that the government is good at keeping statistics and formulating appropriate tax rates amusing.

[Outcast_Searcher]

To discuss the details of a problem is not to dismiss the problem. Without going into the details and actually finding solutions that actually work given all the facts you will have no progress.
I find your presumption that the government is good at keeping statistics and formulating appropriate tax rates amusing.

That's OK. Over time, overall, I find most of your assumptions BS. You mainly just want to argue. Fine. Welcome to my ignore button like so many here. You, like so many, can find whatever BS you want on the internet to soothe your beliefs.

AI's from companies like FB and Google will even help you and many internet drones.

Welcome to my ignore button. Your signal to noise ratio is just too near zero, over time. You're a "credit" to far right beliefs.

[vtsnowedin]

I will happily reside in your ignore land and wait to converse with people that wish to have serious discussions.

[Tanada]

300 Low-Income Residents to Receive $500 a Month From City of Atlanta in Pilot Program

Three-hundred Atlanta residents will receive $500 per month for a year as a test of a basic guaranteed income program in the city, Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms' office announced Tuesday.

Registration is not yet open, but the city said in a news release that those interested in registering must be over 18 and have a maximum income of 200 percent of the federal poverty line.

Applications for the program are set to open in the coming months, and the mayor's office encouraged residents to see if they qualify and join a waitlist at ulgacoaimpact.org, where the program is described in detail. Participants in the program will be chosen at random from everyone who registers.

The program is called the Income Mobility Program for Atlanta Community Transformation (IMPACT) and is a partnership between the city and the Urban League of Greater Atlanta.

"We are seizing this moment to realize Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision for addressing economic security and pervasive poverty," Lance Bottoms said. "Dr. King said, 'The curse of poverty has no justification in our age.' In the spirit of Dr. King's vision for the beloved community, the launch of the I.M.P.A.C.T. program takes us another step closer to creating One Atlanta - an affordable, resilient and equitable Atlanta."

Insider published a summary in December of 33 current or recent similar programs that have given money directly to residents from governments as more cities and states have shown greater interest in the idea of universal basic incomes in recent years, although the programs have been around in various forms for decades.

The federal poverty line eligibility requirement currently sits at $53,000 for a household of four; about $44,000 for a household of three; an estimated $35,000 for a two-person household and about $26,000 for a single individual.

Program funding includes a $2 million donation by the city to the Urban League of Greater Atlanta, who will administer the program's day-to-day operations.

The city's announcement Thursday comes amid a surge in advocacy for guaranteed income programs.

An $850 per month program aimed at Black women in Georgia by the Georgia Resilience & Opportunity Fund was also announced in December. It aims to give the money to 650 women for two years. The program will begin early in 2022 targeting women in Atlanta's Old Fourth Ward neighborhood, whose City Council representative Amir Farokhi has been working to set up a basic income program for some time. The program will later expand to sites in southwest Georgia and metro Atlanta suburbs, officials said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

LINKY

[Tanada]

Rochester approves pilot program for guaranteed basic income

Rochester City Council on Tuesday has approved a proposal that establishes a pilot program for a guaranteed basic income.

The legislation appropriates $2.2 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding to provide $500 per month for one year to 175 individuals in households with income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level. The second year of the program will provide the same monthly amount to a different group of 175 people.

Before she left office at the end of November, former Mayor Lovely Warren submitted the legislation saying that “The quickest path for Rochester families to escape poverty and build generational wealth is through the establishment of a guaranteed basic income.”

The legislation allows the city to establish a contract with the Black Community Focus Fund, led by the Rev. Myra Brown, to administer the program.

Guaranteed or universal basic Income programs have been implemented or proposed in a number of other communities around the nation.

Mayor-elect Malik Evans supports the concept, but indicated he would like to explore the possibility of an even larger program, possibly with the help of philanthropic support.

City Council also recently approved legislation related to public spaces in the city that have been named after individuals who enslaved people.

The resolution, submitted by Council President Loretta Scott and Councilmember Mitch Gruber, says that a preliminary survey of public spaces by the City Historian identified the Charles Carroll Park on Andrews Street and Nathaniel Square on Alexander Street, as public spaces named for two of the city’s founders, whose “involvement as enslavers and traders is well documented.”

The resolution urges the city administration to continue the survey of public spaces and to "rename all public places that are named after slaveholders."

The measure notes that Rochester’s past includes many individuals who deserve public spaces named after them.

Among the examples mentioned in the resolution are Austin Steward, an African American abolitionist, author and businessman who wrote a memoir in the 1800s called, "Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty years a Freeman," and James McCuller, who led Action for a Better Community in Rochester for a number of years starting in 1968.

LINK

[Pops]

I can't really figure out how the future should look. Stipulating that all continues apace, more and more work will be automated and fewer and fewer humans required to do anything but consume.

The first thing I would rather see than free money is higher wages at the low end. That would do a couple of things, first, for people for whom education is a struggle, it would allow them to make a living. No doubt it would reduce the workforce to whatever extent but so what? If a low end job allowed one person to support a household I think it's more likely they would pair up rather than sit alone in Mom's basement.

So now you've taken care of 2 or 3 people, formed a consuming household with a stake in the community, given a worker likely better satisfaction even though still working a drudge job at least it pays. And likely more drudge jobs would be automated to boot. I'd much rather have an "honest" job rather than a welfare check. I don't see a downside except for the Walton heirs and a quarter more on the cost of a big Mac

I would think free junior college and more funding for state colleges is a part along with cracking down on diploma mills. There will always be a slot for the prestige college but business has already raised the bar by requiring society to educated employees to an ever increasing standard, sometime requiring far more education than required as a matter of course. It is time that businesses pay the tab for that requirement.

I definitely don't think kid credits and socialized child care is right. The best thing we could do is support one worker families, not subsidize corporations who pay wages too low for workers to afford childcare. It is another subsidy of the 2-income trap.

We used to have UBI, you got paid based on how many kids you had, how long you could avoid getting a job and how dysfunctional your relationship with men—or at least the how long you could hide a man in the household. What a perverse incentive. It wasn't designed to be that way, or at least I'm sure those weren't the goals originally but that's how it ended up.

If you set the minimum wage high enough to live on in a particular market, you would provide incentive to automate whatever could be automated which in my mind is better than paying less than a living wage for drudge work.

[Outcast_Searcher]

The first thing I would rather see than free money is higher wages at the low end. That would do a couple of things, first, for people for whom education is a struggle, it would allow them to make a living. No doubt it would reduce the workforce to whatever extent but so what? If a low end job allowed one person to support a household I think it's more likely they would pair up rather than sit alone in Mom's basement.

And who pays for that? The taxpayer?

I'm sure not lining up to pay $5 for a $1 hamburger to pay for a job that a robot could do better.

It's far easier to have wonderful economic theories than to get things to work, re PAYING FOR THINGS in the real world. Just ask Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, et al.

[Pops]

the topic of the thread is UBI, where do you think that comes from?

[vtsnowedin]

I see two possible results from raising the minimum wage on low skilled work. One is to drive the job to other lower cost labor markets (China etc.) and two to drive the company to automate and replace the workers with robotic machines. Either way the job soon no longer exists here and raising the wages has been a failure.
Now a clever government could set import tariffs at levels that balance our,taxes,regulations and wages to the importing companies wages, taxes and subsidies, thereby creating and maintaining a level playing field . And or they could tax the productivity of robots used here as much as they would the productivity of the workers they have replaced providing the income stream for the UBI of the displaced workers..
Unfortunately it has been a long time sense our government was clever or competent and I don't know if it has ever been both at the same time.

[Pops]

Not gonna export all the service jobs which is where most low paid work is. But like I say, with one living wage you don't two crappy incomes. Automation is gonna happen, no matter. The longer blaming low wage on the wage-earner goes on the more the political system will distort I think

[Pops]

I was thinking this am while looking at a couple of stories about "The Great Resignation" that some of what I'm talking about might already be going on because of increases to the minimum wage. "Quit" rate has to do with boomers retiring mostly—or like me, mostly retiring—, everyone else that quits is taking advantage of a good labor market and going elsewhere for a raise. But part of the hot housing markets, buying or renting, could be household formation linked to rising wages.

You all remember Calculated Risk from the Great Recession, here from a couple of months ago:

Recently we’ve seen strong demand for both owner occupied and rental units. We can see this demand in rapidly rising home prices and in rents. This suggests a significant increase in household formation in 2021 (demand is increasing faster than supply).

Or not, I'll be looking for evidence to cherry-pick
.

[Doly]

to the extent that smart robots displace a huge set of workers who then can't get viable work (are rendered obsolete), to ignore the problem is to basically tell the workers to exist only on shrinking government handouts (as the tax base shrinks as workers become obsolete)

You are assuming that the standard argument that robots will cause massive unemployment because they displace workers is correct. I don't think that argument holds very well, because that can be said of every kind of machinery that has displaced workers in the past.

What has happened, historically, is that, as long as there is enough wealth in the area (and this is the key), machinery displacing workers has only been a temporary problem, till the workers found some other type of work to do. When there is wealth, there is never a shortage of jobs that people would like done. Once upon a time, there were all sorts of beauty treatments that weren't available, and most kinds of holiday sports didn't exist.

I think the main reason there is all that talk about robots displacing workers is because people in high places know that an economic downturn is coming, and they want to blame unemployment on automation, because it's a convenient scapegoat.

[Pops]

What has happened, historically, is that, as long as there is enough wealth in the area (and this is the key), machinery displacing workers has only been a temporary problem, till the workers found some other type of work to do.

I don't think we're capable of paying any number UBI, either economically or politically. What I wrote above about increasing wages to allow one person to support a household was wishful thinking. Financialization and labor arbitrage and voters captured by the whims of oligarchs have taken us way beyond that.

Population and jobs were fairly constant until fossil fuels, then both took off. Fossils replaced muscles and freed humans to do more complicated stuff and everything expanded.

IMHO, soon, if not real soon, energy production will stop growing and likely the economy will also stop growing. Much of the worlds rich populations have stopped growing and within 20-30 years I think total population will stop growing as well. When energy and population stop growing, the economy will too if for no other reason than those two things enable the mirage of unlimited growth (sound familiar? LOL). The end of endless growth will be the end of endless credit which will likely go back to being a sin called usury.

But, on the bright side, the end of cheap energy means muscles will eventually make a comeback. Hopefully not soon.

[Plantagenet]

I don't think we're capable of paying any number UBI, either economically or politically. What I wrote above about increasing wages to allow one person to support a household was wishful thinking. Financialization and labor arbitrage and voters captured by the whims of oligarchs have taken us way beyond that.

And don't forget what is probably the biggest factor in falling wages for US workers and thats the downward pressure put on wages due to massive illegal immigration. Decades of Idiots like Biden throwing open the border to admit millions of poorly educated workers has tended to drive down wages, especially for low skilled American workers who have to compete with all the illegal workers.

IMHO, soon, if not real soon, energy production will stop growing and likely the economy will also stop growing.

Energy from oil will hopefully stop growing. However, the Chinese, India and other third world countries are still building out their coal energy infrastructure.....and there is LOTS of coal out there.
Even here in the west there are other, more expensive energy sources like wind, solar, nuclear, fusion, geothermal, tidal etc. that can increase total energy supply.

on the bright side, the end of cheap energy means muscles will eventually make a comeback. Hopefully not soon.

There era of cheap energy isn't ending. Look at the real world, Pops. Hundreds of coal-fired plants are being built right now and more are planned in China, India, Indonesia and other third world countries, and these will be running and producing cheap energy (and lots of CO2) for decades to come. Obama signed separate treaties with China and India in 2015 guaranteeing them the right to building unlimited numbers of coal fired plants.....and this craziness was ratified again in the Paris Accords.


India, China and other third world countries are building hundreds of new coal-fired power plants that will be producing cheap energy (and lots of CO2) for decades to come

Cheers!

[careinke]

I would keep the VAT on food, just to encourage people to grow there own. The VAT on a package of seed is not that much money, and if you save your seeds, it's no money.

I'd also place a tax on every stock or bond transaction, freeing up a large amount of bandwidth for other purposes.

First, since when is there a bandwidth shortage? Second, once the large herd of low earth orbit WIFI satellites is in place and people can make WIFI connections virtually anywhere on earth via satellite, we're going to have more WIFI bandwidth than you can shake a stick at.

https://thenextweb.com/podium/2019/08/2 ... 0b-a-year/

If you are in favor of a VAT vs. traditional income taxes or want a VAT to raise more money, including a regressive tax on poor people, OK, but let's just call it what it is instead of claiming there's some meaningful bandwidth shortage when in reality, huge numbers of people are streaming video every day, much of that on all-the bandwidth-you-want-at-one-low-price internet accounts.

Weird, I went to look at this thread and it logged me in as Pop's! I could not get around it. Then it only went up to this post. I have no idea if I had already answered it or not. When I took a quote, it transformed me back to me!

Anyway OS, you have obviously never lived in deep rural areas, the internet SUCKS!! Unreliable, expensive, and extremely limited carriers, who have no desire to continue serving the area.

Why do you think your Dear Leader Brandon keeps promising better internet access in rural areas? Of course the government will steal the money and spend it all on hearings.

So if you haven't walked the walk, I suggest you listen to those that are.

On the bright side, I'm betting the niche will be filled soon by the private sector, even with government interference.

PEACE

[Pops]

You can post as me C, doesn't matter.
Try hitting the refresh button while holding down the shift key, I have to do it almost every time I load a page.

[Tanada]

Weird, I went to look at this thread and it logged me in as Pop's! I could not get around it. Then it only went up to this post. I have no idea if I had already answered it or not. When I took a quote, it transformed me back to me!

Anyway OS, you have obviously never lived in deep rural areas, the internet SUCKS!! Unreliable, expensive, and extremely limited carriers, who have no desire to continue serving the area.

Why do you think your Dear Leader Brandon keeps promising better internet access in rural areas? Of course the government will steal the money and spend it all on hearings.

So if you haven't walked the walk, I suggest you listen to those that are.

On the bright side, I'm betting the niche will be filled soon by the private sector, even with government interference.

PEACE

So the issue that has plagued those of us between the Appalachians and Rockies has now spread to the Pacific Northwest? Interesting. All this time we thought it was a cloudflare problem that the cloudflare owners were ignoring because the bulk of their customers are in the ocean coastal states. If it has spread even further it is getting worse instead of better.

There are two work around solutions. One is create a macro that adds "?1" at the end of the HTML code for the page you want to view, this forces the Cloudflare program to search for the most recent version of the page. If that is too cumbersome and you use Firefox or other generic browsers to visit the page then hold down the shift key while using your mouse to click the page reload button. For me both methods work on my ancient Firefox using desktop but only the first method works when using an iPad or iPhone to access the mobile version of the website.

[evilgenius]

It's caching pages. I bet that is set up on the server? It could be a config setting? Maybe Cloudflare, and whatever the setup is, aren't quite working together? Maybe it started happening because of a change to Apache?