Fast food automation...

[MediumTex]

See, I totally disagree...you look at government and a market economy as antagonistic entities. Historically speaking, this isn't the case. Market economies nourished government, and government facilitated the development of marketplace economies. They have a symbiotic relationship. You guys are really missing the boat on this one by not see the way that they are interconnected. Go back and study the transition of society from hunter gather to agricultural settlements. Then look at when and why governments began to appear and how this coincided with the development of marketplaces, laws, currency, contracts etc. etc.

This is just a wild guess, but I predict that Kshartle will disagree with you. 

[doodle]

See, I totally disagree...you look at government and a market economy as antagonistic entities. Historically speaking, this isn't the case. Market economies nourished government, and government facilitated the development of marketplace economies. They have a symbiotic relationship. You guys are really missing the boat on this one by not see the way that they are interconnected. Go back and study the transition of society from hunter gather to agricultural settlements. Then look at when and why governments began to appear and how this coincided with the development of marketplaces, laws, currency, contracts etc. etc.

This is just a wild guess, but I predict that Kshartle will disagree with you. 

I'm more sure of that than I am that the sun is going to rise in the east tomorrow. Anyways, this is mostly a question of fact. When and why did government develop and how was their development related to the rise of economies? Seems like a pretty mainstream anthropological question.

[Kshartle]

See, I totally disagree...you look at government and a market economy as antagonistic entities. Historically speaking, this isn't the case. Market economies nourished government, and government facilitated the development of marketplace economies. They have a symbiotic relationship. You guys are really missing the boat on this one by not see the way that they are interconnected. Go back and study the transition of society from hunter gather to agricultural settlements. Then look at when and why governments began to appear and how this coincided with the development of marketplaces, laws, currency, contracts etc. etc.

This is just a wild guess, but I predict that Kshartle will disagree with you. 

I'm all disagreed out for today. I'm tapping out.

Guys I never disagree just for the sake of it. I really just try to get to the heart of the matter as I see it so we all understand it better. And hopefully if my logic is bad it can be pointed out and I can learn from my errors. 

[MediumTex]

See, I totally disagree...you look at government and a market economy as antagonistic entities. Historically speaking, this isn't the case. Market economies nourished government, and government facilitated the development of marketplace economies. They have a symbiotic relationship. You guys are really missing the boat on this one by not see the way that they are interconnected. Go back and study the transition of society from hunter gather to agricultural settlements. Then look at when and why governments began to appear and how this coincided with the development of marketplaces, laws, currency, contracts etc. etc.

This is just a wild guess, but I predict that Kshartle will disagree with you. 

I'm all disagreed out for today. I'm tapping out.

Guys I never disagree just for the sake of it. I really just try to get to the heart of the matter as I see it so we all understand it better. And hopefully if my logic is bad it can be pointed out and I can learn from my errors.

We're all friends here.

Take a break and come back refreshed.

[moda0306]

The U.S. with all of its flaws is a perfectly fine place to live.

It could be better, but it could be a LOT worse.

It's useful to take a complaint break from time to time and just walk down the street and marvel at what a neat world we have built.

Getting overly annoyed with the government once you understand its true nature is IMHO sort of like getting freshly annoyed every time a severely disabled person dribbles on his shirt.

MT,

Will you ever run out of analogies?

[Kshartle]

Would you be OK with a market-driven solution that has the disaffected buying guns and killing you or people like you?

Solution to what?

The solution to this problem:

I'm just trying to figure out what you do about masses of people who have nothing to do during the day except get more and more pissed off that their society doesn't seem to be providing them with any opportunities (whether this is actually true or not is a different discussion).

The point I am making is almost an anthropological question--i.e., how do cultures/societies remain cohesive when too many members of the culture/society feel that they no longer have a place?

I suppose your answer is really "I don't know", which is fine, of course.  I don't know either.

I don't accept the premise of the question. I agree that there will be growing discontent. I agree that there will be violent reaction to it. As I've stated in previous posts I believe this stems from people asking their governments to take action to solve problems (welfare, unemployment benefits, caring for the elderly, crime, drug use, blah blah). It's not a result of work-saving technology.

If we don't address the causes then the remedies will just make it worse. So either address the causes or don't bother asking the question (my opinion only of course).

Hunker down, have friends and family that are capable, save, get some gold out of the country, ensure you've got skills that are transferable.

No way to rescue society, it's going to happen with or without you. Just take care of your life. I point out what I see as causes on a forum like this or when in discussion for friends but I have no illusions about my potential impact.

I'm no anarcho-crusader. If I'm passionate on this board it's because we're here to discuss stuff. I live a regular life besides that and just try and maximize happiness and minimize interaction with distastful people and risks.

[Pointedstick]

I don't accept the premise of the question. I agree that there will be growing discontent. I agree that there will be violent reaction to it. As I've stated in previous posts I believe this stems from people asking their governments to take action to solve problems (welfare, unemployment benefits, caring for the elderly, crime, drug use, blah blah). It's not a result of work-saving technology.

Work saving technology -> unemployment among the lowest-skilled, least adaptable, elderly, etc -> those people turn to welfare, crime, or drug use -> people ask government to solve those problems

If this chain of causation is correct, that isn't the fact that people ask the government to solve the problem an admission that the problem precedes the government's reaction to it?

Again, I'm not advocating a halt to labor-saving technology. I'm just worrying that it's helping society in the aggregate at the cost of creating increasingly severe social problems for a growing part of that society.

[MediumTex]

I wonder what would happen if all public assistance to the unemployed was eliminated overnight and the tax revenue used to fund those programs was returned to the private sector in the form of a .65% tax cut.

Would that be a positive thing?

I'm not arguing for any kind of government action, but I do recognize that if you take away something on which people depend it can be pretty disruptive.

You might say that the government never should have undertaken to assist the unemployed (or disabled, or elderly), but once having stepped into that role, I don't know how you step out of it without a lot of societal strain.

It's probably about like what Greece is going through now.  The more austerity they get, the more their economy sputters.

[Kshartle]

I don't accept the premise of the question. I agree that there will be growing discontent. I agree that there will be violent reaction to it. As I've stated in previous posts I believe this stems from people asking their governments to take action to solve problems (welfare, unemployment benefits, caring for the elderly, crime, drug use, blah blah). It's not a result of work-saving technology.

Work saving technology -> unemployment among the lowest-skilled, least adaptable, elderly, etc -> those people turn to welfare, crime, or drug use -> people ask government to solve those problems

If this chain of causation is correct, that isn't the fact that people ask the government to solve the problem an admission that the problem precedes the government's reaction to it?

Again, I'm not advocating a halt to labor-saving technology. I'm just worrying that it's helping society in the aggregate at the cost of creating increasingly severe social problems for a growing part of that society.

Only if you believe work saving technology causes more than very small, temporary unemployment. If you recognize that by stopping asking government to solve problems, whereby the "solution" causes more unemployment, the first part would not even be a concern at all.

If min wage, regulations, taxes and welfare handouts weren't around adding millions to the unemployed then we'd have so much more productivity I don't think we'd have large, dissatisfied groups posing a threat to the others.

Even if you think work saving technology causes more than very small, temporary unemployment, there is no government solution. The market solution will sort itself out if it exists. Our personal solution is to take care of ourselves and those closest to us.

[MediumTex]

An interesting experiment would be for a state to be permitted to eliminate the minimum wage for a few years and see what it did to unemployment and average wages in that state.

[Kshartle]

I wonder what would happen if all public assistance to the unemployed was eliminated overnight and the tax revenue used to fund those programs was returned to the private sector in the form of a .65% tax cut.

Would that be a positive thing?

I'm not arguing for any kind of government action, but I do recognize that if you take away something on which people depend it can be pretty disruptive.

You might say that the government never should have undertaken to assist the unemployed (or disabled, or elderly), but once having stepped into that role, I don't know how you step out of it without a lot of societal strain.

It's probably about like what Greece is going through now.  The more austerity they get, the more their economy sputters.

There is no way the bill cannot be paid for these mistakes. The full austerity will be enforced by the market eventually and that will be more brutal than if we take action sooner. We have millions and millions of dependants, like it or not. They should not be left to die, they are our brothers and sisters. We have to stop adding them though. If we stopped adding them at least the ones on the dole now could be cared for and we could all move on.

They vote though so this is all academic. The market will have to force this by upping the govt borrowing costs and rejecting an inflation solution by raising prices. This will be the worst situation for the dependants I'm afraid. Whichever ones are alive when it happens.

[Kshartle]

An interesting experiment would be for a state to be permitted to eliminate the minimum wage for a few years and see what it did to unemployment and average wages in that state.

My guess would be the former would go down and the latter go up.

Even if the latter didn't go up I bet their would be entire new industries employing young people with very low skills. It seems mean but it's actually great to teach them skills.

I would also bet that within a few more years the welfare rolls would drop since fewer young people would be getting added.

College tuition in the state might drop with more young people following a non-college path. Perhaps we'd have fewer BS degrees out there people take to avoid the economy. That would also mean fewer people in student loan debt with no way to pay it off.

[MediumTex]

I guess that the good news is that many nations in Europe are far deeper into the socialism game than the U.S. is, so however painful some eventual pullback on government services is for the U.S., it will be much more painful for those nations.

[Kshartle]

I guess that the good news is that many nations in Europe are far deeper into the socialism game than the U.S. is, so however painful some eventual pullback on government services is for the U.S., it will be much more painful for those nations.

I hope we don't ever get to the 50% unemployment for young people like some of the PIIGS. This is a good place to observe the unemployment volatility we're discussing. However they don't have anything like the access to firearms as here and perhaps less racial divide (north africans notwithstanding they are a little more homogeneous).

[koekebakker]

I guess that the good news is that many nations in Europe are far deeper into the socialism game than the U.S. is, so however painful some eventual pullback on government services is for the U.S., it will be much more painful for those nations.

I think most Western European countries will be able to adjust better than the US. Things aren't as polarized as in the US and governments have more flexibility regarding taxes. They can still mess it up of-course... Also, there is widespread support for maintaining at least some form of minimum income at the cost of other government programs. Plus, the chances of getting mixed up in some kind of expensive war are far lower.

[clarara]

That's right, in many countries in Europe there's a minimum wage. In Germany there is a big discussion whether to introduce a minimum wage or not. But I'm not sure whether it helps something or not concerning the whole economy. For example Spain, Portugal and Greece all three have a minimum wage.