[Tanada]

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.

As much as I love history I know you can not change it so I would pick the annual average for the decade 2010-2019 and use that as my baseline. Trying to fix errors of the past when most of those alive today never knew what things were like before a certain date is a fools errand. If my Irish relatives all got the UK government to pay them reparations for hundreds of years of tyrannical rule it would not assuage the sins of the past, it would just be a money transfer from the taxpayers in todays UK to the reparations receivers in todays Ireland, a nation which has been functionally independent longer than most current residents have been alive. The same is true of almost every reparation claim anyone can make, the sole exceptions I can think of offhand would be the Jewish people who were given aid by Germany in the mid to late 20th century and the Japanese Americans who were made less damaged by reparations for treatment during WW II. In both cases those receiving compensation were victims who had personally suffered from the actions they were being compensated for.

In the case of mechanization destroying the tax base that keeps the system functional the injured party is the collective group of all taxpayers who are harmed by the actions which profit the corporations installing the mechanization. At the time of Henry Ford 1927 that you used individual taxes were small to the federal government and there was no SSI, Medicare-medicade and income taxes were almost entirely a corporate tax on businesses and only a small tax rate at that. The world has shifted so far from that pre-WW II lifestyle that comparisons of buying power and taxes are almost impossible to make a real comparison. Not to skip over the fact that the average elderly date of death was 62 instead of 79 which means we need a lot more money to care for the elderly portion of our population.

[evilgenius]

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
.

Do you think the Fed would drive adjustable rates far enough to crash housing? Right now, they are talking about a point or so worth of rate increases, not much more than that. But a series of quarter point increases could set the stage for even more frenetic action in mortgage rates? I wonder how front loaded something like that, based upon a lot more increases than expected, can be? You can certainly see, over time, on this site how much fear there is over the level of debt throughout society. There could be a gigantic overreaction about to take place. The markets could actually set up a historic buying opportunity.

[Pops]

Do you think the Fed would drive adjustable rates far enough to crash housing? Right now, they are talking about a point or so worth of rate increases, not much more than that. But a series of quarter point increases could set the stage for even more frenetic action in mortgage rates? I wonder how front loaded something like that, based upon a lot more increases than expected, can be? You can certainly see, over time, on this site how much fear there is over the level of debt throughout society. There could be a gigantic overreaction about to take place. The markets could actually set up a historic buying opportunity.

In the past most recessions have started that way haven't they? When the economy blows bubbles about all you can do is try to ease back I think.
I really expected a foreclosure crash with the pandemic, sold a more expensive house and bought a super cheap Missouri house. What happened instead was trillions in stimulus that went straight to the housing market. People are hunkered still and houses on the markets (days of supply) is historically low.
In my small experience, rising interest rates typically drive loan origination for a while as people try to get in under the wire, the problem now is we've been stimulated since 2008 and I don't know if there is any demand left at these prices. Average house in CA is almost $800k! Affordability is lowest in a decade.

I have some cash, just waiting for the crash,

[billybell]

I totally agree that it's better to have more cash. I try to shoot every week my winnings from forecasts at https://oddsdigger.com/at/non-sport

[evilgenius]

The current good situation with job openings is bound to reverse itself, as the Fed raises rates. I've seen this happen before. It always works.

Imagine if the robots had been ready to compete with humans this time around?

These things come in cycles. Will there be a wave next time?

Those kinds of decisions come with infrastructure spending and, sometimes, politics, but, as long as those costs are not prohibitive, they shouldn't stop the robots.

I think, regarding this, the biggest danger to shareholders over automation are executives who are so far out of the loop on the processes of their relevant organizations that they don't have a clue as to how to handle implementing it.

Watch out for those who keep doing what hasn't worked and for those who just mention outside contractors, as if doing so made up for knowledge of what they would be doing.

As far as that goes, some decisions need to be made now. I work at UPS. They will probably go electric at some point coming up. Will they think to consider package bay sizes in the new trucks and implement some kind of package size restrictions that match in the system?

The robots will need that, in order to pack the truck. They don't need to be able to do it as well as humans, they just need to be able to do it.

Some policies, like package size restrictions, would help robot implementation. They would help people too. Seeing that would have meant they were more in line with thinking the way they needed to if they were to implement robots because they could see the processes. They aren't in line. They think too politically.

Their biggest threat could be some well funded start up, not FedEx. I watched that happen to an office supply company back in the day.

They had a contract with this place I worked for. I could hear the guy in the mailroom complain at first, and learn to keep his mouth closed.

He watched so many other people get laid off that complaining about how long it took nowadays to get something didn't make sense anymore.

The old name was some office supply name from when I was a kid. They went away, and were pretty much replaced by these new ones. I think the new ones lasted under a decade. They had carried way too much debt to pull something like that off over the changing conditions they should have expected, not just the rosy ones.

You can see how a start up could get that right.

I don't own any UPS stock. I just work there.

[vtsnowedin]

The current good situation with job openings is bound to reverse itself, as the Fed raises rates. I've seen this happen before. It always works.

Imagine if the robots had been ready to compete with humans this time around?

These things come in cycles. Will there be a wave next time?

Those kinds of decisions come with infrastructure spending and, sometimes, politics, but, as long as those costs are not prohibitive, they shouldn't stop the robots.

I think, regarding this, the biggest danger to shareholders over automation are executives who are so far out of the loop on the processes of their relevant organizations that they don't have a clue as to how to handle implementing it.

Watch out for those who keep doing what hasn't worked and for those who just mention outside contractors, as if doing so made up for knowledge of what they would be doing.

As far as that goes, some decisions need to be made now. I work at UPS. They will probably go electric at some point coming up. Will they think to consider package bay sizes in the new trucks and implement some kind of package size restrictions that match in the system?

The robots will need that, in order to pack the truck. They don't need to be able to do it as well as humans, they just need to be able to do it.

Some policies, like package size restrictions, would help robot implementation. They would help people too. Seeing that would have meant they were more in line with thinking the way they needed to if they were to implement robots because they could see the processes. They aren't in line. They think too politically.

Their biggest threat could be some well funded start up, not FedEx. I watched that happen to an office supply company back in the day.

They had a contract with this place I worked for. I could hear the guy in the mailroom complain at first, and learn to keep his mouth closed.

He watched so many other people get laid off that complaining about how long it took nowadays to get something didn't make sense anymore.

The old name was some office supply name from when I was a kid. They went away, and were pretty much replaced by these new ones. I think the new ones lasted under a decade. They had carried way too much debt to pull something like that off over the changing conditions they should have expected, not just the rosy ones.

You can see how a start up could get that right.

I don't own any UPS stock. I just work there.

I see the robots already having a big share of the labor market. Just look at how many man hours were tied up in a 70's Detroit assembly line vehicle and compare it to Tesla's model Y assembly line.
If you want a good job in a manufacturing plant today you need to be the guy that sets up and fixes the robots.

[evilgenius]

I think one of the fastest growing sections of the American Economy is warehousing. Much of that is because of what robots can already do. It's only going to get larger, becoming something the rest of the world will imitate. Eventually, people won't work much at all in those places. At least, you hope so. They are like pig farms for humans.

It makes one sad, realizing that whole countries, even regions, will try using people. But they won't be able to compete. Their form of UBI will probably contain some provision for the gradual reduction in numbers their approach is more likely to engender. They won't free their people as fast. They won't want to, for "legal" reasons. Right?

People work now because there isn't any robotic competition to speak of. The US has the sort of economy that promotes this sort of growth. Post pandemic, it should only start to go exponential. More belts, more automatic this and that. The inflation numbers suggest it. Those additions will lead to more of other additions because scale, at the very least, will make it possible. There will be more automatic niches. Eventually, things cross over, and there are more basic changes.

Because the standard is to follow the others up the pole. That's how we want to think. It's why America, in particular, has a problem making huge bandwidth internet access really cheap. They need to see a progression of the traditions that led to this place. Whereas, they could have the best access, if they did things differently.

It will take some places longer, that is to say, to change their minds about what they think about people who don't work. They have a role for suffering, that comes with who is expected to suffer, in society that they have not necessarily been honest about. When they deal with that, then they will be able to start talking about actually freeing more people, I think.

[Pops]

Evil, I think in a decelerating, localizing economy there will be less stuff to warehouse. In an energy poor future we won't be wondering about what to do with strong backs and weak minds, the uses will be apparent.

I'm thinking that the pandemic stimulus on top of the prior decade of unlimited stimulus, easing, accommodation, etc , meant to postpone the once and future depression, in addition to the several decade run of borrowing to finance the illusion of continuing technological advance— rather than diminishing returns— have given us the peak of consumption.

[Plantagenet]

I'm thinking that the pandemic stimulus on top of the prior decade of unlimited stimulus, easing, accommodation, etc , meant to postpone the once and future depression, in addition to the several decade run of borrowing to finance the illusion of continuing technological advance— rather than diminishing returns— have given us the peak of consumption.

You may very well be right.

Clearly the blowout spending in the first year of the Biden administration triggered off inflation.

As a result, the economy is now in stagflation, i.e. we've got both inflation and stagnant economic growth.

Energy prices had already tripled over Biden's first year and now that he's bungled Ukraine we're going to see even higher energy prices.

I think this will all combine to produce a recession later this year.....and if Biden bungles dealing with the recession like he's bungled everything else the recession may turn into a depression.


the stock market is already crashing......I predict Biden's policies are going to lead to a recession/depression by the end of 2022

Cheers!

[vtsnowedin]

You may very well be right.

Clearly the blowout spending in the first year of the Biden administration triggered off inflation.

I think Biden's fossil fuel policies and regulation is the primary driver of this inflation not the pandemic spending.
This is a peak oil site after all so everyone here should understand the role energy and particularly oil has in our economy. Any given product has a portion of it's value derived from the use of fossil fuels so a fifty percent rise (unnecessary by decree)in the oil price runs through the economy and results in fifteen percent inflation.

[evilgenius]

If I am going to blame anything for the current rate of inflation I will have to blame humanity's habit of indulging in just in time inventory control methods, not anything else. Because inflation is simply a market imbalance. Supply doesn't match demand.

Supply chains are only as strong as their weakest link. In today's world, that still means some human being who has to show up for work that day. Yes, the pandemic proved that CEO's don't actually do their employees work!

They can't make promises over what their people will do that involve them committing things that lie outside of what work actually means to most workers either. They like to do that. It's becoming tradition. It's never true that they can make those promises, though. In fact, when there are other jobs going, we have seen that it makes people quit.

There is a battle going on for what people think about work. Most work places want people to feel a sense of belonging. Nowadays, though, that sense of belonging costs more. Right now, most businesses are in denial over that. They want to enjoy what they can get out of people, for less. That old way of thinking, however, is very resilient. I don't know if, no matter the talk, any paradigm shift has really occurred? They will most likely just wait workers out.

[vtsnowedin]

I think the price of oil is a much more direct driver of inflation then management / employee relations. The fact that the employees are paying more for energy in their households and grocery bills drives them to seek higher wages or even a better job.
They could reverse Biden's energy policies and things would get better. Fail to do that and nothing management can do would make any significant difference.

[Pops]

Oil lately is adding to inflation but the number one inflation item is used cars—because a lack of new cars, because chips, no. two is rent, because home sales are down and price up, because everyone wants out but no one wants to move and investors are buying to rent; no. three is meat eggs etc because people are at home and they buy different stuff than restaurants, eggs in shells rather than pre-broken in #10 cans; 4 is energy, including electricity because the US is Saudi Arabia dontcha know and we are exporting fossils like they're going out of ...

But yeah, JIT is partly at fault. Guess what? I've been saying for years that there is only 3 days food at the local market so you should warehouse your own. We were never out of anything and in fact helped some folks who were.

JIT in theory is flexible in that the item being supplied can be changed instantly because there is no backstock to work through or discard—warehoused IOW. In practice however, switching over the manufacturing of gas station and office building industrial TP to homestyle Soft 'n Fuzzy was just not something the Koch boys could handle. JIT led to ultra-specialization so the plants that make TP delivered to office buildings on pallets just couldn't make Charmin.

The entire backstock of whatever somewhere in transit is not ideal when a major situation affects the entire transit network. But still, I'd say the major problem is not JIT, it's normalcy bias.

having pontificated all that, I'm not sure what inflation has to do with UBI

[Pops]

They could reverse Biden's energy policies and things would get better. Fail to do that and nothing management can do would make any significant difference.

Oh so it is Biden who is preventing KSA from ramping up, causing Venezuela to collapse, Norway to decline, Russia to invade, Bakken to shut in.

Oh if life were as simply as Q tells us.

[vtsnowedin]

I'm not sure what inflation has to do with UBI

Well if you had a UBI inflation would be eroding it's value.
Used cars are not something you buy every week or even every year. Perhaps one family in seven buy a new or used vehicle in any given year.
36% Of Americans rent their housing and if rents go up buying to get off that treadmill will become more attractive.
But you buy food every week and pay the utility bills every month and put gas into the car. That is where inflation bites the hardest.

[vtsnowedin]

Oh so it is Biden who is preventing KSA from ramping up, causing Venezuela to collapse, Norway to decline, Russia to invade, Bakken to shut in.

.

Why would KSA increase production to drop the price they can sell it for. Venezuela collapsed years ago so Biden is of that hook. Same with Norway's decline as that is a matter of geology.
The Russian invasion is clearly a response to Biden's weakness demonstrated by the failure in Afghanistan and the Bakken shut in is a direct result of Biden's energy policies.
I don't blame Biden for every bad thing in the world just the dozen or so he has touched so far.

[Pops]

the Bakken shut in is a direct result of Biden's energy policies.
I don't blame Biden for every bad thing in the world just the dozen or so he has touched so far.

Bakken production was falling from fall 2019.
trump was president then.
It shut in just like every other area of the world because of oil prices below zero in 2020.
trump was president then.
It's actually come up a speck in the last year since biden

Doesn't repeating everything you hear on fox get to be embarrassing?

[vtsnowedin]

the Bakken shut in is a direct result of Biden's energy policies.
I don't blame Biden for every bad thing in the world just the dozen or so he has touched so far.

Bakken production was falling from fall 2019.
trump was president then.
It shut in just like every other area of the world because of oil prices below zero in 2020.
trump was president then.
It's actually come up a speck in the last year since biden

Doesn't repeating everything you hear on fox get to be embarrassing?

That was because crude prices dropped below the cost of production in the Bakken. So that one area was down but total US production was up and we were exporting excess.
Isn't repeating everything on Morning Joe getting tiresome?

[Pops]

you just said it was Biden's fault

[vtsnowedin]

you just said it was Biden's fault

Yes for the total decline in domestic production. The Bakken figures are a small part of that but given time he will destroy that production as well. $4.00+ gas is totally his fault and if you are not paying that today wait two weeks.