San Francisco politician want to tax "robots" - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: josecamoessilva
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 01:07:20 am
content: Man, if only those buggy whip manufacturers had politicians like this, few of those newfangled Otto-mobiles (because they use the Otto thermal cycle) would be around on the streets.http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-considers-robot-tax-jane-kim-2017-4From the article:"Supervisor Jane Kim is exploring a tax on robots as one solution to offset the economic devastation a robot-powered workforce might bring. Companies that use robots to perform tasks previously done by humans would pay the city. Those public funds might be used to help retrain workers who lose their jobs to robots or to finance a basic income initiative."For context: The city of San Francisco, pop. 800,000, has an annual budget of... drumroll, please... nine BILLION dollars. (And, despite being my favorite place in the world, as city amenities go, it's a dump.)I especially like that the order screens at the local McDonald's are "robots." Like the T-800, but for minimum wage jobs.Edited to add context: Portugal, a country with around 9 million people, has a total government budget equal to the city of San Francisco (again, pop 800,000), at 9 billion dollars (I converted from euro, yes). I want to be very clear that the $9B are not for the "Bay Area," just the city of San Francisco. With its potholes and garbage and trees dying and intermittent policing and infrastructure falling apart.

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 01:58:11 am
content: I find it sadly funny that their own minimum wage hikes spurred on the need for automation to replace workers, then they want to tax the businesses for the foolishness of the government. I think passing economics 101 should be a requirement when running for office.

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 02:22:00 am
content: It is not in it's essence a terrible idea.Let us assume for a moment that massive automation on an unprecedented scale which will see large swathes of jobs be lost is indeed around the corner, you might debate it but let's for now assume the worst case happens.The reason for it is that companies will reduce their wage burden and increase their productivity and increase their profits for their shareholders, and this will be at the severe detriment of employed masses.Coming up with a way in which to offset that problem, which is directly attributable to companies "getting robots to do humans jobs" (wherein robot is just a short-hand for "a machine that does a job otherwise a human would have" and includes things like self-service kiosks), is a good idea.If nothing is prepared for, or done, and again we assume the worst case, we have a dire social and economic problem with massive unemployment, a further rise in the wealth of a small minority at the expense of the rest of us.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 03:54:30 am
content: Do you have a refrigerator? Those put "ice men" out of work.Do you have a car? What about the farriers and buggy whip makers?Do you have a phone? Think about how that crushed the telegraph workers?Is it touchtone? What about the telephone operators' jobs?Do you have a digital camera? What about all the poor film developers?Do you send email? What about the postal workers?Do you ride automatic elevators? What about the elevator operators?Do you use RFID toll tags, like e-z pass? Unemployed toll takersWhat about golf carts? Those curtailed caddying as a career choiceCopy machines caused the folks who make carbon paper to lose their jobsExcel means that a lot of assistants, accountants, and bean counter helpers are out of work.MS Word and Outlook mean a lot of people can do a white collar job without an administrative assistant.Self-serve gas pumps mean fewer attendants (in 48 of the states)It seems a little odd to focus on only "new" robot applications while using the other conveniences/advancements that also killed jobs.

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 05:37:00 am
content: Quote from: sokoloff on May 03, 2017, 03:54:30 amI'm a taxi driver, electronics is only a hobby. I don't plan on doing this much longer and that's for the best. Within 10 years, taxicabs will have gone the way of so many industries past. Uber, Lyft and the like are the future. Within 20 years, driving will no longer be a profession due to driverless vehicles. Time Marches on and progress is progress. Fighting it is nothing more than applying a bandaid to a fatal wound.

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 05:37:51 am
content: Assume that machine learning, self-driving trucks, delivery drones, voice recognition and so on actually come to fruition, and a large proportion of existing jobs get automated.If/when that happens what will everybody do to earn a living? How do you distribute the fruits of endless automated production to enough people to have a functioning economy? What is the point of being able to produce endless widgets if only a small proportion have any wealth to buy them?I've got no answer. We did this in manufacturing with the industrial revolution, and then industrial automation in the 80s & 90s but I don't have confidence that the economy can keep being restructured over and over again, each time giving a reasonable chance of paid employment for all.Or if it does, imagine how fragile and brittle it would be to failure of core infrastructure - for example, should a few GPS satellites suddenly go offline how would anything get done?(there enough useless ranting from me)

author: ConKbot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 05:54:09 am
content: So if a McDonald's kiosk is a robot, what about a kiosk at a gas station/convenience store that never employed people to push buttons on a screen and has always let you push the buttons yourself? Do they pay?

author: sleemanj
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 06:11:14 am
content: Quote from: sokoloff on May 03, 2017, 03:54:30 amPosted before, will post again

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 07:10:29 am
content: USA is not nearly the most cost effective place for manufacturing in the first place. Nice idea how to drive out manufacturing that was left.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 01:37:29 pm
content: Maybe instead of planning more taxes it'd be a good idea to persuade corporations and those individuals who can afford to employ tax 'mitigation' specialists and avoidance schemes to pay what the laws intended instead of what they can be twisted to say is legal?I'd love to pay less tax but can't afford to buy into the schemes which could make it possible as I don't earn enough to make it worth my while.

author: Kuro
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 01:45:42 pm
content: Quote from: sleemanj on May 03, 2017, 06:11:14 amThanks! I learned nothing new, but this is the most concise best explanation of the huge problem heading for us in the next decade I have seen yet.Still, people won't learn even if it gets explained to them in a simple manner like this. Just look at global warming. It's easier in the short term to stick your head in the sand and ignore it.It reminded me of an interview with a local neoliberal politician who was asked what to do about unemployment, still quite high here. He said the best option was to cut all unemployment benefits - if people got hungry, they'd be willing to work. It shows the dogma that these people live by: if you're unemployed, it must be your own fault. There is no way you could be unemployed otherwise. Which is rubbish, even easy to prove so, but these people don't listen to evidence, but rather 'alternative facts'.And even smart people (like EEVblog engineers) fall into this trap. Just look at this thread. What I find most amusing however is that the people who claim there will be new kinds of jobs anyway use the argument one should not resist change, because change is good in the long run. But when someone suggests changing society for more fair distribution of wealth or more specifically here tax robots, these very change lovers sing another tune. I always wonder if they ever notice the contradiction themselves...

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 01:52:22 pm
content: Quote from: Kuro on May 03, 2017, 01:45:42 pmThat certainly would work quiet well for UK. Not particularly short term unemployment benefits, but those paid to the people not doing anything other than sitting on their ass for years.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 02:10:34 pm
content: Quote from: sleemanj on May 03, 2017, 02:22:00 amYes, please. Every other country, please place tax on robots. For sure there will be one country, which doesn't, and that is where I'm going to move, along with all the industry. Every single car manufacturer, PCBA assembler, every industry, which produces anything will move there. You know, what will be the end result? More people will lose their job, educated people, the ones who are giving tasks to the robots.Do it. Economic suicide.

author: BrianHG
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 03:02:38 pm
content: It's not tax the robots, but tax the products and services which you may purchase or use which used robots to be made, not matter which country it was manufactured in. In a different way, these are the taxes we pay on imported goods, except, an additional tax if such items were made by robots. But, I see how this still wont work, and create nothing but a can of worms and with dirty politics, there will be those who will be profiting like mad no matter which way things go at the expense of the vast majority...

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 03:18:33 pm
content: Quote from: BrianHG on May 03, 2017, 03:02:38 pmUntill robots become self-aware and start taxing us humans for everything.

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 03:26:38 pm
content: Quote from: Cyberdragon on May 03, 2017, 03:18:33 pmor just milking

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 04:16:55 pm
content: Quote from: Kuro on May 03, 2017, 01:45:42 pmFYI, there are very few professionals here, so one should not expect too much of this crowd...That said, of the professionals I know, the observation is much the same. Humans are humans, 90-10 rule applies no matter how you slice it.Tim

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 04:34:51 pm
content: Kitchen robots as well? And 3d printers too? What about the roombas? And the one in my swimming pool?

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 05:24:50 pm
content: Quote from: MarkS on May 03, 2017, 05:37:00 amI'm sceptical about driverless cars. Today, most trains still have drivers and rail is a heck of a lot easier to automate, than road vehicles. When driverless trains come into widespread use, then there's a possibility the same will happen with road vehicles.

author: station240
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 06:15:57 pm
content: Tesla are going to be pissed if this sort of tax gets off the ground.https://electrek.co/2017/04/25/tesla-model-3-robot-production-line-pictures/

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 06:24:01 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on May 03, 2017, 05:24:50 pmIt's an imaginary, i.e., legal, barrier.Consider: there aren't as many trains on the road as there are cars.The cost of developing driverless trains is high.The cost of defending driverless trains in court is high. (It's likely that a robust solution would succeed in court, but the inevitable fact is, it would be challenged, and that challenge would be very expensive.)Presumably, one can conclude that the maintenance cost, of having minimal human labor onboard the vehicle, is lesser than the amortized sum of the above steps. Therefore, they do not pursue it.Trucking has a similar problem, with a greater challenge (roads are more complex, and the driver must cooperate with other human drivers), and as it is right now, they're pinching off the labor as tightly as they can. A truck driver still has more to do than a train driver, but more and more, their activities are proscribed by the constraints of their employer, and the legal obligations around that (labor laws setting mandatory break, for instance).A general purpose passenger car has somewhatlessliability compared to those other applications: modern cars are quite safe, even when driven very poorly, so the medical and legal risk to the company making them is relatively small. They would still be exposed to class-action lawsuits, but that would only be applicable once a large customer base exists. The early experiments (where we're at now) present only internal risk, and early adopters (where we'll be, fairly soon), present only a moderate risk.Once the consumer version is perfected, enterprise grade versions will be picked up by all the shipping companies. It doesn't make any sense for them to stick their neck out, when larger vehicles, more valuable cargo, and more homogeneous fleets, are at stake.What I'm curious to see play out is, how much of the roads will remain human-accessible in the next 50 years? Once human drivers become the minority (and they absolutely will), they will become the marginalized, restricted, and ever-more-vocal group. Will they be limited to certain open-access roads or highways? Will driver qualifications tighten? (Perhaps making US drivers more like Germany's.) What will be the equilibrium fraction once self-driving cars reach saturation -- 50% human? 10%? 1%? I'm also absolutely certain that human drivers will not go away completely; but they will be limited to enthusiasts, whether because they like it that way (as most car enthusiasts today), or because they want to keep doing it that way (traditionalists).Tim

author: Neilm
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 06:40:32 pm
content: Quote from: station240 on May 03, 2017, 06:15:57 pmBut humans have never mass produced the Tesla model 3 - so no jobs lost

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 06:44:09 pm
content: This is an interesting topic for sure. The normal human tendency is to extrapolate from the present infinitely into the future and therefore thinking that recent technological trends will continue along this path of more and more automation and replacement of human jobs by robots is only natural for any technologically minded person who came of age in the late 20th or early 21st century.Maybe it will come to pass and if so the question of what to do with all the redundant humans will arise. Some have proposed instituting aUniversal Basic Income. But work is "good for the soul". I see enough depressed young to middle aged people living on disability payments due to job ending injuries to know that this kind of dystopian future is just as troubling to me as the Wall-E type of automation induced human dystopia:BUT - believing that the trend of technological advancement of the last 100 years will continue unabated requires ignoring the lessons of longer time frame history and the fate of past technologically advanced civilizations. It also requires one to believe in unabated easy availability of the necessary physical resources and the global financial and political stability needed to continue along the advanced technology path set in recent decades. I personally find that unlikely and therefore put the likelihood of a very highly automated future at less than 50%. I find it more likely that we'll either end up in a Blade-Runner type technological dystopia or a return to aWorld Made by Handlow technology future (preferable IMHO).

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 07:09:49 pm
content: For the factory of the future to be completely automated, it needs its own automated supply chain. So it needs to build a fleet of robots to go out into the world to bring back raw materials. Competing automated factories will do battle on the scorched, uninhabitable remains of the Earth over the last available tungsten and molybdenum.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 07:24:23 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on May 03, 2017, 05:24:50 pmPersonally I think we are decades further from a true driverless car than a lot of people think. Sure the Google cars have logged thousands and thousands of miles, but those thousands of miles are around the same few extensively documented routes. Just wait until someone tries letting one of those cars out in the wild and using it up here in the Northwest where standing water, mud, snow, ice, wildlife and other obstacles cover the roads, obscure visual markings, severely limit traction, etc. After decades of very smart engineers working on the problem, computers still struggle to identify a simple spam email from a legitimate one, a task that most humans can accomplish with a glance. Will a self driving car be able to reliably detect the difference between an errant shopping bag blowing across the road and a boulder? Will it slam on the brakes in a full emergency stop and get me rear ended because it sees a balloon in the street? Will it drive me off a cliff because spilled paint on the road looks like a lane marker? If we get half an inch of snow will the cars all shut down and refuse to move?That said, automation replacing jobs really could become a serious issue. In the past new technologies have displaced some workers but at the same time they created many new jobs in other fields. With the sort of automation that is appearing now we could have jobs automated on a scale unlike anything ever before, and the jobs they replace are gone. Buggy whip makers could go on to make parts or accessories for automobiles, the technology is similar, the demand was even greater, but the sort of automation we're seeing now is created by a *far* smaller team of *far* more specialized workers than those it replaces. People are going to have to have a way to contribute to society and support themselves, and if we're going to automate everything IMO it should give us all more leisure time while making society as a whole more productive. Unfortunately what it actually tends to do is make a small number of wealthy people more wealthy while leaving the rest struggling and working harder than before just to stay afloat. If the number of people in that position gets big enough, society will collapse under its own weight.

author: vodka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2017, 08:26:02 pm
content: Without News from the frontHere , we have all the stupid socialist and main leaders of unions says that the robots and AI pay to the SS.On resume, if the corporations on Spain pay to SS approximatly 40% of the a salary of employee and the employee pay among 20-30% of their salary.So for logical when the robot will pay , the corporation will pay to SS 70% of the robot salary. The logic consequence the corporations will get out of SpainThe left-party like always bankrupt Spain.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2017, 03:13:11 am
content: Quote from: helius on May 03, 2017, 07:09:49 pm

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2017, 03:45:01 am
content: Quote from: james_s on May 03, 2017, 07:24:23 pmWell, all about money. A minimal viable product for spam reduction can be pretty shit. If it kills 90%, it's still letting through an awful lot of spam... but it's something.I'm guessing they're in the 3 sigma range nowadays (haven't looked up the stats), which is as good as a human would do (average results in the service industry are on that par, anyway). And at a huge multiple of the throughput, and fraction of the cost.QuoteIndeed, there can't possibly be enough jobs, for people smart enough, to fill them. If I talk to an average person on the street about what I do, they'll probably be amazed at the things I know and remark that they "could never do that". Even though 90% of what I do is faffing around with spreadsheets, and 90% of the other 10% is easily-learned fiddling with technical objects. The remaining 1% is how I am able to work: that arcane knowledge, that I gained through relentless curiosity, and which I apply in great detail to the other 99% of what I do.Still, I would assume anyone is capable of doing that 99% of my work, given sufficient confidence (remember, you can BS your way through almost anything: life is, primarily, a big con), and a little learning on how to put things together.But even if the average person is aware of, and understands, this argument -- they will still deny their capability, that they "can't", or "shouldn't", perform such work. So they won't.(Nevermind that a corporation isn't usually going to hire someone unqualified for such a job. There aresomechallenges in pulling off a con, after all.)What to do? Perhaps we're entering a technological dark ages, where AI is just good enough to use in mass applications (i.e., displacing service industries), but still too expensive for the common man to purchase. Now is the time of large corporations, technological monopolies.But over time, the knowledge driving those systems will disseminate, for sale to the highest bidder (or at the highest salary), and pretty soon competition will appear. The former monopolies will have less power over their customer bases, while prices for these products falls massively. The Internet of Things will be replaced by the Internet of AIs -- people will buy androids to perform their labor tasks. Perhaps not sentient ones -- indeed, that would be a good thing to avoid, morally, since this is "just slavery with extra steps", and even the average person will realize this and feel bad aboutowningand ordering around something they're too empathetic towards.The main downsides to such a possible future, I think, are:1. More Internet of Shit. IoT devices are bad enough, and you want to buy something humanoid-sized?! Your average consumer priced android is going to be buggy as hell, and get viruses easier than you catch the common cold...2. They're still going to be pretty expensive. Right now, devices are still very specialized and integrated: it's not meaningful to purchase a PoS kiosk (which might be, uh, I don't know, $10k at a guess?), then walk over to your nearby McDonalds and ask if they'd like to "employ" your kiosk for talking orders. (The companies producing these kiosks may well have such an agreement, but it will include highly technical integration and support services. They have to be connected to the internal network, they have to be wired up, they have to be serviced from time to time...)3. Will the price ever really be low enough for such an outcome to be practical for the average consumer? With the complexity of a humanoid frame, I find it hard to believe one would ever come down much in price; to be fair, automobiles haven't dropped in price either -- a new car is still in the $20k range, and cars are fairly comparable in complexity I would suppose. It seems unlikely that advancements across the board (automation of supply chain, mfg and fab methods) will suck a significant amount out of the bottom line, relative to today.I think it's very unlikely to occur, just that it's an interesting possible solution to the problem of humans maintaining an income without there being any jobs they can economically take.(I suppose more likely is that we legally entitle ourselves to a universal stipend, while our machines take on more and more economic and legal aspects of -- what used to be -- our jobs. In effect, the economy will continue soaring, surpassing human output while feeding us a token allowance. Until we get cost-reduced, in which case, we'll then have the known-universe-so-far's first artificial civilization!)Tim

author: hamster_nz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2017, 04:13:43 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on May 04, 2017, 03:45:01 amI think that are engineered to a price point, based on the cost of ownership ($x of fuel per week, insurance) - it seems there is no point selling inexpensive cars like cheap inkjet printers unless you are also selling the fuel.A contrasting example could be a wide screen TV. Have you seen how inexpensive they now are? I can get a second tier 55" 4k TV for about US$500.Back in 2011, Wired predicted "But the Law of Big Glass says 55-inch OLEDs will someday go for less than $1,000 at Costco" -https://www.wired.com/2011/04/st_infoporn_lcds/

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2017, 04:16:50 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on May 04, 2017, 03:45:01 amIn these discussions the militarization of AI is underplayed, which seems odd to me. It's precisely the "dissemination of knowledge" that will be the most dangerous aspect of this technology in the near future. The spiderbots of "Minority Report", and similar depictions of autonomous agents, are shown as tools of an overweening state; but since the knowledge to make armies of drones cheaply is inevitably disseminated, the more likely outcome is for them to be used for covert warfare without borders or laws. We are so wrapped up in the mass unemployment scenario that we're forgetting the mass murder scenario.Nowhere does this require sentience or superintelligence: the piranha doesn't need much of a brain to be a killing machine. And there are ways to completely conceal attribution so that there are no consequences for whoever deploys them. The current US drone warfare program is largely public because it needs to employ thousands of pilots; AI doesn't need to employ anybody, so it operates in total secrecy.

author: josecamoessilva
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2017, 07:16:20 pm
content: And if you thought taxing robots wasn't Luddite enough, CA legislators are now considering double-taxing the already taxed rocket launches (based on "mileage" which is an interesting concept for things that go into orbit, like the payloads).Nope, not kidding:https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/05/california-may-have-found-a-creative-new-revenue-stream-taxing-rocket-launches/I love my home state, but our politicians are really embarrassing.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2017, 07:31:25 pm
content: Quote from: hamster_nz on May 04, 2017, 04:13:43 amEven if a typical car hasn't changed price in real dollar terms, it's wildly "better" than a 1965 car. Disc brakes, electronic fuel injection, catalytic convertor, antilock brakes, electronic stability augmentation, seat belts, air bags, curtain air bags, seatbelt pretensioning, reverse lights, CHMSL, interval wipers, AC, backup camera, power windows, power locks, automatic transmission are all pretty close to "standard" equipment, while they would have been luxury equipment or unavailable 50 years ago.Additionally, the car is likely to be about 2x as efficient and last 10x as long between "tune ups" and last 3-5x as long overall.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2017, 07:40:16 pm
content: Quote from: sokoloff on May 04, 2017, 07:31:25 pmAbsolutely, the value per feature has never been better! But I'm also talking about something with likely even more electromechanical and programming effort behind it, so it's probably a pretty good comparison, as ballparks go.Tim

author: BenchVue Team
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: May 04, 2017, 07:50:55 pm
content: Wait 'til we create Cylons, human-looking machines with all the abilities of the native humans but which can think faster, have superhuman strength, and which will one day demand equal rights. There's got to be some way out of here...Brian

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 04, 2017, 10:04:13 pm
content: Quote from: josecamoessilva on May 04, 2017, 07:16:20 pmThere is quote a bit of open, empty space here in Oklahoma. We'd welcome the industry!Quote from: josecamoessilva on May 04, 2017, 07:16:20 pmThen quit voting the nut jobs into office!

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 12:12:56 am
content: Quote from: MarkS on May 04, 2017, 10:04:13 pmEasier said than done. Generally it's a matter of would you like to vote for nut job A, nut job B, or would you like to let others make the decision without your input?

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 12:19:32 am
content: Quote from: james_s on May 05, 2017, 12:12:56 amPoint taken. I'm willing to sit back and watch California implode. Maybe it will knock some sense into the populous.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 03:24:41 am
content: Quote from: sokoloff on May 03, 2017, 03:54:30 amIndeed they did, over 50 plus years.QuoteStone the crows!---- not the old "buggy whip " simile?Back in the late 1980s/early 90s, the "change agents " used to delight in this one, along with "win-win"!Buggy whips were never a mass market, as they were mainly "for show".Most people who worked with horses had no use for them, & even the ones which were bought, were seldom, if ever used, & lasted for many decades.Farriers were like the "ice men", they slowly lost work over 50 or so years.QuoteNo, it didn't, many of them were the same people.Even among Telegraphists, it had little effect, as people continued to send telegrams for many decades,-although, eventually using Machine Telegraphy.Businesses didn't like relying upon the spoken word, & telegrams gave them the printed evidence that the message had ever existed.The rise of Fax, e-mail, & texting all show that the idea of written text is alive & well.What did impact Telegraphists was the development of electrical relays, which could replace the multitude of operators at "repeater stations".QuoteDial phones had all but eliminated telephone operator's jobs before "touchtone" appeared.QuoteAutomatic for decades!!QuoteI didn't send many letters, anyway!QuoteLast time I saw one with an operator in Australia was in the mid 1960s, & it wasn't a mass employer even then!QuoteNo, I live in a civilised city, we don't have tolls!QuoteI'm not a golfer, but surely I've seen caddies & players both riding the carts.QuoteCarbon paper was never a manpower intensive business, & some of the same machinery used can probably work OK with making printer paper.QuoteThere still seem to be plenty about, though!QuoteYes, & it shows in the dysfunctional crap we receive all the time!QuoteBeen around for a long time in Oz--even longer in the UK (I used them there in 1971).QuoteWithout knowing my way through the convoluted tax regime in the USA, I can only speak for my own country, where the Federal Govt controls income tax.The richdotry to avoid tax, but even if they didn't, there are not enough of them, so countries rely upon taxing working folk to pay for all the things which we take for granted, like defence, customs, health, & a lot of other stuff.If numerous workers are displaced by "robots", where will they get this tax?The obvious answer is to tax the new "workers".

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 06:57:30 am
content: Quote from: sokoloff on May 04, 2017, 07:31:25 pmI can see why automatic transmissions seemed like a luxury item back in the 50s but it has always annoyed me just how popular they are. I absolutely loath slushboxes, they take all the fun out of driving. With an automatic you're not really driving the car, just kind of aiming. Sucks up all that low end grunt and gives everything a mushy, slushy disconnected feeling. I've gone so far as to rip them out of a few cars and replace them with a good 5 speed manual when I could find the parts. It's hard to even find anything made in the last 20 years with a real gearbox anymore.A lot of that other stuff has been around for a long time though. I've got a 1977 Volvo that has fuel injection, lambda sensor, power assisted disc brakes, catalytic converter, 3 point seatbelts front and rear, interval wipers, front and rear crumple zones, collapsible steering column, side impact protection, unfortunately that one also has an automatic but it's a cool old car, ahead of its time.In my view cars kept getting better and better until around the mid to late 90s and then they just started getting ugly, bubbly, covered in flimsy plastic, bloated and heavy with layers upon layers of regulation and bucket lists of requirements driving any uniqueness out of them.

author: OpenCircuit
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 08:11:51 am
content: "Companies that use robots to perform tasks previously done by humans wouldpay the city." [emphasis added] As stated, it is a means to "...pay the city." This is a "share the wealth card" by the government. Joe Blow is losing his job so the city knows they can rib the corporation for some of the money saved from terminating the employee. City is primarily political wages and their friend appointees, which is their (the government employees) lives and well-being and not the actual citizenry. CA is a budget nightmare, SF is no exception. Why? I suspect a very large government staff and extremely inefficient operating. US Cities are using all kinds of creative means to generate income now to "pay the city."Another recent means of generating revenue are the traffic cameras (robots?) that have usurped constitutional guarantees, but income generated is the primary reason and the U.S. constitution is just a nice sounding piece of paper. No credible and non-biased reports have shown effectiveness. Found acceptable to the oblivious and those reaping the profits. Cloaked under the guise of "public safety." No jury trial: it is a criminal act if the police officer stops you, but a civil infraction when the camera catches you, thus no jury trial. huh? Also, no jury trial since the fine does not meet the minimum $ amount required for a constitutional guarantee to begin-varies from state-to-state. If you just pay the fine it doesn't go on your license and your insurance doesn't go up, but if you do just keep quiet and give them money it will be swept under the rug. If you don't pay we will place this on your credit report. Just another example of a way to "pay the city" using robots."Pay the city", interesting statement to consider. As others mentioned, "for what?" The roads? Robot" parking meters (pay for the city). Law enforcement that does nothing, until Joe Blow offends a corporation. Call the police next time someone steals your property. Observe the police response. Next, observe what happens when the poor man is caught stealing food from the same corporation. Corporations have strict policies on filing criminal charges against shoplifters. Take for example, the low-wage Dollar General manager who recently informed me that " you  have no idea how many I have prosecuted (not really she is not a lawyer; lawyers prosecute not store clerks) for stealing cans of air" ($5usd). Corporations are major sources of "paying for the city" and often in collusion, so the hungry man is off to jail for sure. Seems I am veering off base here, but the man did say "pay for the city" and we know, in the US anyway, who pays for the city. Whatever was stolen from you as an individual is a distant memory."Pay for the city" nearly an endless list as their creative genius places tax after tax upon you and the robot is the new way to accomplish just that. Refuse to pay.... Anyone want to know what happens then? I know some of the legal remedies. They involve a public auction ("execution" not the guillotine), swat teams, lots of guns, you being dragged out of your house bloody and kicking and screaming. Well you have to pay for the roads (despite the holes ), so you should have paid your taxes like everyone else. P.S. since you have no home your kids now go into foster care. Oh, it is illegal to sleep on the park benches.I digress...much consideration needs to be taken into account as robots impact society. Rich (corporations) are getting richer and others are getting losing their direction as their purpose is being absolved.

author: OpenCircuit
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 08:50:58 am
content: Quote from: sleemanj on May 03, 2017, 02:22:00 amYou are assuming-not safe to do- the services traditionally provided by American cities are commensurate with taxation. I do not assume that what I give to the government will come back to me in services. This simply does not happen.Generally speaking government jobs are highly coveted and often given to friends. Why is this important? Because these government jobs are well-paid, come with extensive medical insurance, extraordinary leave packages, generous raise schemes and are not at-will employment in most cases. All of this is paid for by the citizenry who have, on average, far less than government employees. Government administrators are not paying for these things, we are, so what do they give a shit about? Their raise next year. How? Robot taxation. Traffic cameras. Roads and regulations is what we get. I don't recall the last time a police officer helped me-aside from being an arrogant prick last time I asked for directions ( I mistakenly assumed that someone who drives around this area 8 hours a day 5 days a week would know where things are-I was wrong), fire department has never helped me, zoning board has never helped me (they did try to charge me for a permit though to have a shed in my back yard), etc. this is a long list- a very long list!You simply do not get back what you put in from US city governments. Find me one where you do and I will kiss your ass. I will not be kissing your ass, so do not hold your breath.Having studied social science as an undergraduate-read my posts I am no EE I am only here playing- governments are very similar to gangs. I want you to use "gang" in a very literal sense. It is synonymous with "team", police departments (see "blue blood"), fire departments (see comradery), racial gangs, biker gangs which are all groups large and small. When animals (humans are animals) are in groups psychology changes, drastically (see Nazism). City meetings are very much like quarterly calls (often referred to as earnings reports) at corporations with discussion focused primarily on earnings- you seem to know a little about from your passing references.If the cities were concerned about the people their government jobs would not be so highly coveted and the unfortunate lower-classes would not be struggling for basic medical needs and food (see obesity epidemic as a result of caloric intake). Keeping people working by making regulations against robot use for labor would be legislation showing concern for the public. I have heard no governmental discussion/propositions to this effect. Focusis on displacementof the human worker.

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 09:57:34 am
content: I don't know for other countries, but here we pay taxes every year for normal cars: pollution taxes and owning taxes. After all, a car is some kind of robot, too, so why not taxes for robots. Probably white goods will not be taxable, but industrial or company robots might be.Artificial Intelligence is making huge progress lately, and this will have consequences on the jobs market. I bet social insurance system is not ready to cope with the new wave of intelligent robots that will come in the next 10-20 years. A robot tax might be a good move after all.A Basic Income will happen sooner or later, and I am not socialist saying that. If we look in the past, people use to work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, and without any social security help. Now we are working 5 days a week, 8 hours daily, and with payed seek vacations and so on. There is a trend to work less, while the living standard increases. Maybe in the future some people will choose a lower living standard for a Basic Income instead of a job, who knows.

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 10:33:35 am
content: Quote from: RoGeorge on May 05, 2017, 09:57:34 amThere's no such thing as a tax that "is good after all", imo. Money should go to our pockets no to the states', that's the idea.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 06:27:04 pm
content: There is a lot of room for debate on how much we should be taxed, but taxes in general are a necessary evil. We agree as a society to contribute money toward collective funds that pay for the infrastructure and services necessary for a civilized society to survive. Nothing in life is free, and if you want things like clean water, sewer systems, roads, emergency services and so on somebody has to pay for that. I for one am glad that I don't have to subscribe to a fire department and hope that my account is up to date should my house catch on fire, and I'm glad I don't have to submit a credit card to hire a police officer to come investigate a break-in or assault. There are some things that work best when they are collectively owned and paid for, and available for everyone to use.

author: josecamoessilva
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 06:50:22 pm
content: To help put things in perspective:San Francisco, the city, has around 800,000 inhabitants. Its budget for this year is 9 BILLION dollars.Portugal, the country, has around 10,000,000 inhabitants (12MM citizens, around 2 million emigrants - like me). Its budget for this year is the same 9 billion dollars.The city of San Francisco has more potholes than pavement, scarce policing except in the areas where the rich and connected live, dying trees, degraded city parts (the good parks in the city are either state or national parks, maintained by the state or federal government), disastrous public schools, etc, etc.Any money collected from taxing robots will go into the black hole of the main budget, no matter what promises were made regarding its use, and therefore add nothing to the life of those who are displaced by robots.There's also a fallacy that people fall into, that the people displaced only have three options: unemployment, loading boxes into trucks, or becoming engineering PhDs. That's because people assume that the sole change from technology is the loss of jobs.Changes in technology bring about jobs no one thought of before. I met a young woman in the gym today whose job is "product model on Instagram," which apparently consists on holding products while taking gym selfies in somewhat questionable poses. She didn't have to retrain to become a PhD and she's not doing "strong back" work.Or, an example we're all familiar with, there's this new technology job "professional youtuber."

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 07:12:40 pm
content: @james_s let me then rephrase the sentence: a bit of socialism is enough and a good thing, but too much of it is not.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 07:22:02 pm
content: Too much of anything is bad. Idealisms like socialism and the other isms don't exist in a vacuum and don't work in absolutely pure form, just as you wouldn't stock your entire toolbox with nothing but Philips screwdrivers.

author: Avacee
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 07:27:06 pm
content: OP: Where did you get the information that the country of Portugal (pop. 10million) and has a budget of 9 Billion?OECD statistics (which I'll take to be fairly trusty) show ~60 billion EUR in revenue and expected deficit of 2.1%https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-portugal.pdfhttps://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=REVPRThttps://www.ft.com/content/d8723ae6-939a-11e6-a1dc-bdf38d484582http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/portugal-population/At the time of posting xe.com shows 1.00 EUR = 1.09911 USD so that's 65.95 Billion USD + deficit ... a slight difference to the quoted 9 Billion.http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/A-city-with-an-8-96-billion-budget-should-be-6311442.php

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 07:33:58 pm
content: Our billions (10^12) are not their billions (10^9), perhaps that's messing things up?

author: josecamoessilva
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 08:14:53 pm
content: Quote from: Avacee on May 05, 2017, 07:27:06 pmYes, my mistake. I read if off the wrong line on my screen. Maybe I really need reading glasses.

author: vodka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 08:21:04 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on May 05, 2017, 06:27:04 pmWhen the taxes exceeds from 40% of your economic capital , these leave to be taxes for being expropriations same kind like Venezuela. The political just have to shout " EXPROPIESE".Therefore if we shall want to live with the robots and the same time have job . We shall have to reduce the taxes and share the jobs,i.e, it doesn't undestand to have a worker working during 10 hours per day during 6 days per week and have a jobless without working during full day . The logical is that the worker and the jobless work during 5 hours per day and the rest of day for hobbies.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 08:29:02 pm
content: Quote from: vodka on May 05, 2017, 08:21:04 pmFor piecework (making widgets, for example), that concept works fine.It works less well (bordering on 'not at all') when the work requires developing and maintaining a shared understanding, shared vision, and developing a single creative product or where the work requires significant technical training or cognitive abilities.I don't want 10 software engineers trying to do the work of 5 software engineers. I don't want 2 composers or 2 painters working on a masterpiece.I also don't want to preclude someone who prefers to work "2 jobs for 15 years" and save their money for an early retirement and instead mandate everyone work "1 and only 1 job for 30+ years".

author: Rick Law
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 05, 2017, 10:33:36 pm
content: Quote from: OpenCircuit on May 05, 2017, 08:11:51 amI was a little reluctant to bring this up since it is a little off-track. But it is related and is an important point.Here I agree withRichard Dreyfuss(the actor in Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, etc.) :The Constitution is falling into irrelevance because of the lack of education. Years past, civics was taught in schools. Passing a test was required to become a naturalized citizen of the USA - a test which included basic knowledge in the US Constitution. Now we have college-bound high school graduates not knowing what are the three branches of government. Some are even at a lost when asked: "Who were we fighting in the American Revolution from which America the Nation was born?"The Constitution is the common glue between Americans. That too was a point was raised by Dreyfuss. What then will hold the USA together?If more of us understand the US Constitution, we would be voting much better candidates into office. Instead, we have candidates "buying" votes by giving goodies to voting blocks. So, the monster that is the government kept and keep growing.If "robot tax" comes into existence,surely it is not going to be last "new kind" of tax. Far from it. The tax will be passed along to average Americans. New taxes will be found. Until... Borrowing Thatcher's word to help finish this paragraph:"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." (Margaret ThatcherUK Prime Minister 1979-1990).So, until then, "robo tax", "sex tax", "green tax"... Never under-estimate a politician when it comes to getting more money from the people's pocket.Supporting sourcefor my summary of Richard Dreyfuss' stand on Constitution & education:video:Richard Dreyfuss' web site:http://www.thedreyfussinitiative.org/

author: VK3DRB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2017, 08:12:53 am
content: Taxing robots could be a good thing. The BBC World Service had an excellent recent podcast about inequality where we might be heading with robots and the like.http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p050kvnzIn short, we have seen nothing yet. Well worth listening to.Be scared. Be very scared.

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2017, 08:57:17 am
content: Quote from: VK3DRB on May 06, 2017, 08:12:53 amFor God's sake, please, stop taxing everything, it only serves to increase entry barriers. 60 years ago anybody could start an own bussiness with ~ nought investment, nowadays even doing nothing costs you money => guess whose benefit is that?

author: OpenCircuit
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2017, 02:46:32 pm
content: How about every mile a rocket travels when it launches from California territory?They will NOT stop taxing everything...multiple times unless the people stop them:https://qz.com/977207/californias-plan-to-tax-rockets-by-the-mile-is-exactly-what-spacex-ula-and-virgin-galactic-want/Google has it right...setup a large floating vessel in international water. I believe this was their idea a few years ago.

author: OpenCircuit
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2017, 03:12:23 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on May 05, 2017, 06:27:04 pmMy friend you are confusing utilities with taxes.Water is a utility that is paid for monthly THEN taxed not a tax that provides a service. Sewer is the same. I commended for roads in a previous post, but that is taxed via "motor tax" in our annual registration. Big difference is when taxed you essentially get nothing in return. Still need to send that in....Zoning: Permit is required for nearly everything except a privacy fence. To have/buy a storage shed a permit is required...this is nothing more than one-time tax to have a shed AFTER you pay tax on it.If you would prefer to work hard all week and give it to the "gang" up at city hall by all means do so, but please do so on your own and don't volunteer our last few nickles and dimes. We need that money to get by on.Be happy to pay for the police only when they help me. They will never receive money from me since they never do anything for me...personally anyway. Robots are making more money-I mean "pay the city" by sitting on a pole fining people for millisecond transgressions at an intersection. By the way, robots are not PAYING anything. I will let you figure out who is. Much smaller force/tax rate could maintain public order, but the trend is a police state as the populace becomes more and more impatient-see violence against police. Study was done years ago, where it was learned that when two officers responded to a crime violence with police increased drastically as they were emboldened by their partner's presence. Oh wait...three years ago they put a letter about a auto burglaries in my mailbox at 3am two weeks after my radio was stolen from my car. File a complaint...wouldn't even think of wasting my time or paying them to do that. Again, if you are hungry and steal a candy bar the corporations will prosecute to the maximum extent of the law and the police will take the person to jail on the spot! Italy recently banned prosecution for stealing food-go Italy!Be happy to pay for the fire department when they help me. They have NEVER helped me.Ambulances are not emergency services...ever received a ambulance transport bill? You mean like a siren when someone reports a tornado?

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2017, 03:58:32 pm
content: You pay for the sewer connection to your house, you do not pay a monthly fee for the sewer system that collects storm water and other waste from the roads, sidewalks, public spaces, etc. You don't pay a monthly bill for sidewalks, you don't pay a bill for public parks. That's great that the fire department has never helped you, they've never directly helped me either and I really hope to keep it that way but I'm also really thankful that they are available if I do need them. Same with the police, it's rare that I've needed them but when I was rear ended by a tractor trailer recently the emergency responders were there within minutes, helped me out and didn't charge me a dime. The 911 system is paid for by taxes, the ambulance is not free but the system that dispatches the services is. Yes there is a registration tax and a fuel tax that help pay for roads, traffic signals, etc but that is only supplemental, it doesn't come anywhere close to paying the full cost of those things. Taxes also support the public education system, they pay for jails and prisons, taxes pay for the internet backbone that you are accessing through the ISP who's service you pay for directly to access this forum. Taxes pay for regulatory bodies that make sure your food is safe, your medication is what it says it is and has been tested and found to do what it says it does.There's no sense in me laying out everything here, the information on where your state and federal tax dollars go is freely available. One of the largest single items on that list is military/defense, whether you think that's worth it or not is up to you. Any way you look at it, taxes have always and will always be a part of life in any developed nation. Paying for stuff you personally don't use is part of living in a civilized society, rest assured that somebody somewhere is chipping in for something you use that they personally don't.

author: Kuro
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2017, 04:17:27 pm
content: All I hear is a back and forth argument about taxes. Most people find taxes unfair, because they don't realise what they get for their money. When politicians then start wasting tax money, it further increases the sentiment that taxes are unjust. This argument is old, and both sides of it never change their position.What I'd like to hear from those who oppose a robot tax or other taxes that redistribute wealth, is how they intend to handle the coming crisis. For it is not if, but when robots and AI take away 30-50% of jobs and very little new jobs will be created to replace those lost. It's easy to scream that those out of a job are only themselves to blame and they should solve their own problems. Just ask any historian or social expert what happens to a society with that many unemployed who are excluded from society. Now is the time to think about that solution, once the crisis happens it will be too late. So, how would you tackle it?

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2017, 05:18:43 pm
content: I support a basic income program, provided that we simultaneously abolish all the other welfare and welfare-like programs. (Social security is not a welfare program by this definition; I do not propose to abolish that as part of UBI, though I'd be open to abolishing it.)Problem with the basic income is that to beremotelyfinancially tenable, it's going to be extremely spartan, like $600-700/mo spartan.

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2017, 05:41:20 pm
content: Quote from: Kuro on May 06, 2017, 04:17:27 pmI would say much rather the opposite...

author: vodka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2017, 07:25:21 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on May 06, 2017, 03:58:32 pmThe problem isn't if we pay the taxes. The main problem is that we are paying more taxes and we received less every time . For example, here if you inherit a home of the family, depends on which region you could go to bankrupt due to the succession tax. Other example, if you father gives 5000€ to you , you and his father must pay the donation tax (20-30%). And i can follow to tell the amount of abusive taxes or directly hidden expropiations.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2017, 08:24:06 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on May 04, 2017, 03:45:01 amHave you ever spoken to the average person in the street?Going by your website and your posts here, I doubt that nearly anyone can do your job. It's probably true a lot of it can be done by someone with average intelligence but not the parts that make it unique.The chances are, most of the people you know and socialise with are of above average intelligence. It's quite likely you live in an area with relatively clever people.Could you be overestimating the intelligence of the general population?Think of a less well-off area, where more people are unemployed and there's a higher rate of crime. The chances are a lot of the people there could do your job too, given sufficient education but I doubt the proportion is as high as it is where you live.I generally did quite well at school, other than struggling with my writing, which took its toll on my grades: Cs & Bs in most subjects (other than languages where I was forced to hand write everything, resulting in E and D grades) rather than Bs and As. I had to attend the school's special needs department (unfortunately that resulted in being bullied a bit) to get extra help with my handwriting. Up until then I thought most students were capable of understanding basic scientific/engineering concepts such as Ohm's law and Young's modulus, until I had to help a student, who obviously had learning difficulties, with their physics homework. It was very frustrating. I really had to bite my tongue and not call him an idiot because he just couldn't grasp the basics, no matter how many times I explained it to him.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 06, 2017, 10:16:00 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on May 06, 2017, 08:24:06 pmI grew up, and live in, very generic and middle-class areas. While not on the poverty line, it's also no silicon valley here.I know other engineers, and managers; and I know a few farmers, too.QuoteThat said, those participating in crime, are primarily doing it because there's no better alternative. They're not so stupid (though they may beignorantof opportunities that are, in fact, open to them, even from an uneducated and unskilled background).(And no, it's not that one can simply, say, move their business into the inner city and employ those people, and expect everything to be happy ever after; if that were the case, the cheap labor would be snatched up quickly, and we wouldn't have these situations. It's more diverse than that, as most things are, of course.)QuoteIt's hard to say that there are some things which simply cannot be taught to some people. It's also hard to say otherwise...I do like to explain things, but I don't have teaching experience as such, so I'll avoid forming much of an opinion on that matter.If nothing else, there is the wrote learning method, which is proven to work well for almost everyone: it's shallow as fuck, but it generates good test scores, and works nicely for repetitive and unskilled tasks ("grab thing A and put it in socket B, repeat 192 times per day and we pay you").That's the sense in which I meant, most of my job is tedium -- tasks which, if they were worth solving, could be solved very easily with a secretary, or technician, or some computer scripts. Even if a person cannot understand the meaning of these tasks, they would be easy enough to teach. (The main problem is probably consistency and quality: to have someone properly fill out spreadsheets the way I do, would probably need a whip behind their backs to make sure they spot every tiny little inconsistency in spelling and case...)It's just that engineering isn't a big enough field to be worth automating much of, at least just yet.I suppose that's something to look forward to. If you can call perpetual inefficiency something positive; but at least if engineering remains a fairly low fraction of the economy, I suppose there wouldn't be much motivation to improve it.I have absolutely no doubt that my job can be made obsolete, or at least greatly reduced in numbers, within 20 years. Heck, it could be gone already -- again, if there were enough money to be saved by doing so. I guess there just isn't.Tim

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2017, 02:28:13 am
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on May 06, 2017, 10:16:00 pmI remember trying to show a person who was extremely intelligent, & a real guru with digital stuff, how Analog TV worked.He kept thinking that the sync pulses carried the video in digital form--- what he thought the "wiggly stuff" above the blanking level was, is anyone's guess!Even using a monitor with a strobe line to correlate the video with the test pattern didn't work!QuoteWell, gee, on behalf of Technicians everywhere, ( I can't speak on behalf of Secretaries, nor yet, computer scripts), thank you for your condescension .You do realise that real Techsdohave to learn Theory?It isn't all "monkey see, monkey do"!

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2017, 02:53:55 am
content: Quote from: james_s on May 06, 2017, 03:58:32 pmWithin my adult life, many major infrastructure improvements have been carried out in Western Australia, financed by the taxpayer.An example is the Great Northern Highway:When I first drove on it in 1964, the sealed road stopped about 32km (20miles) North of Geraldton, which was itself, about 700km (438 miles) North of Perth.From then, it was "Red Dirt", which was often churned up to the approximation of a ploughed field by Road Trains getting semi-or fully bogged.This was pretty much it, till it ended in Wyndham, 2,484km (1552.5 miles) further North,with maybe, a maximum of 160 or so km of sealed roads in & out of towns---not many of 'em,anyway!By 1989, it was fully sealed, from beginning to end----not by the "Private Sector", or by Aliens, or The Almighty---by the Taxpayer.Taxpayers in other parts of the country may moan & whinge that they don't get any benefit from this, but thousands of people travel this route annually.If they like Bananas, Watermelons or Mangoes, at least some of the ones they eat came down this road.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2017, 03:23:54 am
content: Yes, jobs are going away and have been for decades but I see the chance of any new taxation to offset the exponentially increasing concentration of wealth as unlikely to happen, instead what is happening is that more and more technical (including medicine and teaching and even eventually law and engineering) and especially office jobs will be globalized (subcontracted to global firms, using schemes like GATS Mode Four which give an entitlement to firms to use their own workforce) or in many cases done remotely, say in South America (compatible hours wise) or in Asia (especially India) or other English speaking countries in Asia "as a bridge to full automation". Basically like how NAFTA was for manufacturing, for other kinds of jobs. (Its just been held up for 20 years in negotiations).Much of it has now been moved to TiSA and is broadly lumped together under the heading "cross border data flows" they are working out the final details- they are meeting in Buenos Aires in a few months and its expected big changes will be announced..The governments like it because they can cut funding for education healthcare, etc, drastically. (Why help people who arent working? </sarcasm>) I dont agree with this, I am taking this position to explain it, because I need to to explain the thinking.. the snarky thinking that I see others expressing in the literature- There is a quiet class war going on and the oligarchs now are all friends, they all know one another, They feel entitled to falling wages, countries that have escaped that so far are lucky..So they have set up deals to undermine workers everywhere, right and left.. Think of them like getting high skilled interns, they cost a third to a quarter of what domestic employees cost. Many come from wealthy families in developing countries where money goes further, families that are well connected there, that are desperate to get them jobs after having paid for them to go to college in a foreign country. If working for low wages for six years is what it takes to get some experience on their resumes, they will do it. They are good people, they deserve decent wages, though, not this scheme to use them as wedges to undermine global wages. So the cities have all been outfoxed.. they are only just beginning to get hip to whats been happening.The cities wont have any way to tax any of this, robots, or any of the rest, because this process happens on the Internet where new taxes will likely be barred (they have no idea how big its going to be)It happens silently and nobody announces it.Thinks of the WalMartization of every activity that hasnt already been.More often than not nobody is the wiser, the jobs just vanish. According to Alan Blinder of Princeton, 26% of all US jobs are outsourceable and another study I saw recently said that approximately 40% of all jobs on the planet will be automated within the next decade. Of course there will be some overlap, but this is why all the oligarch-run countries are doing their best to get rid of their safety nets now.(And trade deals make that disinvestment in society/deregulation permanent and irreversible, a fact which is consistently not reported by the media.)How do I know this? Well one of the reasons is spending a lot of time in SF, and silicon valley in research settings, where the elimination of work is not an abstract thing like it seems elsewhere.But, sometimes you have to leave a place you love. The cost of buying a home or renting in SF is astronomical now. I lived there most of my life but fled a few years ago and although I sometimes miss it (especially the great weather and people and hiking)I don't miss the extreme cost of living (and the really horrid traffic jams).How bad? The worst I have ever seen anywhere. When we left it took us almost four hours to get on the road, we actually had to cross the Bay Bridge, then come back to SF and go north on 101 and cross the Richmond-San Rafael bridge because of traffic in the East Bay freeway nexus. I had never seen it that bad. I took that as a sign from the gods that it was a good thing we were leaving. I captured that event on video. I should put it online.Hotel California, you can check out any time you wantbut you can never leave.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2017, 03:30:37 am
content: Quote from: cdev on May 07, 2017, 03:23:54 amHa! I lived in Berkeley in the early 90s when they were adding lanes to HWY 580. Lots of "Critical Mass" bike ride protests unsuccessfully attempted to shut down the widening project while all the politicians promised that it would solve the traffic problems. Yeah. Sure. I left in 96 and while I miss some things there, I'll never go back except to visit.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2017, 03:46:55 am
content: Two words, "quantum teleportation" *wink*

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2017, 04:21:33 am
content: I was dating a lady who was on the top side of the Bay Bridge on the Oakland side driving towards SF during the 1989 earthquake! When the bridge -opened up! She was there. Sounded like quite the experience.They dont do so many launches from California because they usually want to shoot eastward over the ocean for safety and to take advantage of the angular momentum. The two main sites for launches are Cape Canaveral and Wallops Island. I can see some of the launches from Wallops where I live now. (If I know where and when to look and the sky is clear. Usually there is too much light pollution.)

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2017, 05:44:26 am
content: Quote from: vk6zgo on May 07, 2017, 02:28:13 amI didn't mean it like that... a very basic kind of "tech", an actor which can go through the motions, but needn't understand why. (A computer script certainly has no notion of understanding, in and of itself, yet they are made to perform various useful tasks.)(And yes, I've met techs better than some "engineers" I've met.)And, given suitable scale, the above arrangement certainly does prove useful: a lead engineer with several people beneath, them doing the more basic and mechanical and accounting things that soak up so much precious time from core design activities.Just that such an arrangement doesn't scale to very small tasks (which would be an excellent application for scripts), or really anything that suffers dis-economy of scale.Tim

author: Avacee
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 07, 2017, 08:35:36 am
content: Report estimates that 46% of Scotland's jobs are at high-risk of automation by 2030.The Report was written by the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR - a left-wing thinktank) in conjunction with JP Morgan Chase & Co.BBC Article:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-39830113IPPR Summary:http://www.ippr.org/publications/scotland-skills-2030IPPR Full Report:http://www.ippr.org/files/publications/pdf/Scotland-skills-2030_May-2017.pdf?noredirect=1Methinks the same risks would also apply to the rest of the UK ... and other economies with expensive workers.

author: MarkS
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 07, 2017, 11:34:28 am
content: I see a lot of members from outside the United States commenting on this from their perspective on taxes and political issues, and that is to be expected. However, it complicates a rather simple issue in regards to the law in question. San Francisco recently enacted a $15 per hour minimum wage, a nearly 100% increase, to be spread out over several years. As a result of this, at least one major fast food chain, Carl's Jr., publicly stated that they are in the process of replacing cashiers with kiosks. Other fast food chains and service industries have expressed either interest or a commitment to do the same. This was, due to the idiocy of those in power, unforeseen. Now they find themselves backed against a wall, with their highly prized wage hike effectively being neutralized by technology. What they failed to realize is that you cannot demand $1 burgers from McDonald's while demanding that those cooking said burgers are paid more than the market can support. You cannot have it both ways. The customers would reject the necessary price hikes to compensate for the nearly 100% wage hike, so the only option is to reduce labor expenses as much as possible.Ten years ago this would not have been cost effective. Self serve kiosks would have required custom and/or expensive hardware and custom software at great expense. Now, you can write a POS system in Java in a day, implemented on an Android tablet behind a fancy looking kiosk shell with off the shelf hardware. And that's the hard way. The easy way is to pay one of the many firms that specialize in POS systems and utilize one of their in-house designs that are ready to install. Either way, it is now a relatively small initial investment over the long term labor cost increase. If you are open 18 hours a day, typical for most chains, you'll need at least one cashier from open to close. Spread out among multiple shifts, let's estimate (conservatively) 1.75 cashiers per day. $15 x 18 hours x 7 days x 365 = $689,850. Multiply that by the 1.75 estimate and you get $1,207,237.50 per year for 1.75 cashiers per location. If you spend $1.2 million on a kiosk system (a guess) for all San Francisco locations, you will recoup that in two years from the labor cost savings from a single location.This law is an "Oh crap! We didn't think of that!" moment. It isn't that these business were looking to replace their workforce with machines. They were backed against a wall with a gun pressed to their heads and found an opening to slip away. I don't blame them in the least.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2017, 12:01:45 pm
content: Two ways to automate checkout use machine vision.. They can recognize customers, and the products they take.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2017, 05:36:58 pm
content: There is the argument that automation is coming anyway whether the wages are raised or not. I've brought up the point that raising the minimum wage too fast simply drives inflation to which people respond that inflation occurs anyway. I don't really have a good answer there but I think the problem is not minimum wage being too low, but the fact that too many people are "stuck" earning minimum wage. I'm of the opinion that the middle class are the job creators. A strong middle class creates consumer demand, sustains small businesses which themselves are comprised of the middle class, and provides upward mobility for those at the bottom. I think everyone should work a crappy minimum wage job at some point in their lives, but nobody should make a career of it. I put in my time at a local fast food joint when I was a teenager, it wasn't glamorous but I learned a lot and I was able to save up enough to buy an old beater truck that enabled me to then find a better job. There was of course a significant amount of luck involved, but I see an awful lot of people just sitting back and waiting for their dream job to fall in their lap.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2017, 06:22:50 pm
content: Quote from: T3sl4co1l on May 07, 2017, 05:44:26 amDon't worry, I know what you meant.And some technician work is more "difficult" than design engineering, such as being sent out to repair machine with no schematic or manual. I know there are lots of engineers who can't do that.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2017, 06:25:58 pm
content: It's too bad really that there's hardly any money in the tech side anymore. In many ways I enjoy chasing down faults and repairing more than designing new stuff. A good tech needs to have a solid understanding of both the engineering that went into the thing, and fault finding which is another skill in itself. It is in many ways more difficult, but pays less.

author: vodka
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2017, 06:59:35 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on May 08, 2017, 06:22:50 pmThat is named EXPEREIENCE, because they have fixed many machines similar or seemed. Inclusive many technical have thier owns statistic according the brand and his model.When they have a machine with strange symptoms, they are like Engineers, they are more lost than an octopus on a garage.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2017, 08:29:28 pm
content: Quote from: vodka on May 08, 2017, 06:59:35 pmYes, experience is required but understanding key, especially when it's different to what they have encountered previously.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2017, 12:06:24 am
content: Automation means wages fall, not rise. Economics 101,supply and demand. Think millions of new, incredibly focused workers who work for close to free," making millions of decisions each second"There is a LOT of concern at the top about "expectations".Also, demand for goods will fall because of vanishing incomes so there's concern about deflation.Minimum wage jobs will take substantial skills to get, because any job involving any kind of script will be done in a low wage country over the Internet, or eventually, automated.Also many workers will be exempted from wage laws because they will be guest worker subcontractors. If their employers had to pay prevailing wages or even minimum wages the argument goes that that would be depriving their employers firms of the benefits of the free trade regime, and discrimination. Google "discriminatory wage requirements"Quote from: james_s onTodayat 11:36:58

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2017, 08:20:50 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on May 09, 2017, 12:06:24 amThat is the lump of labour fallacy. It presupposes that there are a static menu of jobs that need doing.You also misrepresent the law of supply and demand. Supply and demand are both functions, not fixed points. When costs are saved, demand increases, and GDP grows. This is labour productivity growth, and it is a virtuous cycle.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2017, 08:28:29 pm
content: The problem I see there is that we are having a steady decline in the number of jobs required to serve a given number of people, at least reasonably skilled family wage jobs. What jobs are going to replace all those that are displaced by automation? One team of engineers can design a machine that is built in whatever quantity is needed, largely by other automated machines. A small team of support staff can install and maintain machines replacing hundreds or thousands of workers. I just don't see an easy solution to this. The middle class has been in a long and stead decline, squeezed from both sides, and the middle class is arguably the most important from an economic standpoint. We are the consumers, the job creators, and the source of upward mobility. The middle class has enough disposable income to buy "stuff" and they return a much larger percentage of that income back to the economy by buying things.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2017, 08:35:30 pm
content: Quote from: helius on May 10, 2017, 08:20:50 pmDecreasing labor costs grows corporate profit margins. This does not necessarily result in GDP growth. Since 2001 and until recently, corporate profit margins have expanded at an unprecedented rate while GDP growth during that time period has been anemic at best.The dramatic drop in labor costs over the past 15 years has primarily been due to offshoring of labor to cheaper labor markets in developing countries. That trend has run it's course. Automation is the next step to allow our corporate masters to continue expanding their profits.The question arises though, who will buy their products?. The hollowing out of the middle class (in part due to offshoring and automation of jobs) is not without ill-effects on the economy and societal stability.

author: helius
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2017, 08:50:20 pm
content: As jobs are made redundant by automation, people find new ways of making a living. Do you think there were as many dog walkers or life coaches 30 years ago? What is the point of having a "skilled job" when that skill is obsolete and you don't learn any new skills? This is just defective life management, like waiting for your dream job to come knocking while working minimum wage.The middle class is not being "squeezed". It has a higher standard of living than before, and consumer goods cost less (a result of automation and offshoring). What is happening is that certain sectors are growing as a share of expenses (education, medical, and housing if you live in a coast city) and people are not adapting because their heads have been filled with a brace of lies. They also don't seem to understand that capital formation (rich getting richer) is a requirement for economic progress.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2017, 09:01:09 pm
content: Quote from: helius on May 10, 2017, 08:50:20 pmThat's a nice fairy tail but it is not supportedby the facts.More and cheaper gadgets and plastic crap != higher standard of living.

author: yada
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2017, 09:14:18 pm
content: So they are trying to safe guard against the self checkout machines like in the grocery stores? That's probably a good idea. Have you ever seen every register open at say a target or grocery store? Minimum wage workers cost almost nothing. An employee will literally have paid for their hourly wage within three minutes which is their first customer. The mark up on things are so high now and wages (in the US) at all time low. If they adjusted for inflation min wage should be $15.00 an hour, so by having a wage of almost half that these companies are making a killing. Look at the US stock market; it went from 7,000 when bush left to over 20,000 when O'Bama left. Its never been even close to the high (12,000 record high when Clinton left). I think its funny that US business people vote republican but republicans economically perform worse. Clinton broke a record for the stock market (indirectly) but directly for a huge surplus. Bush killed the stock market not only spent the ENTIRE surplus but the borrowed more then was ever borrowed. Like whipping out your life savings in four years and then racking up just as much credit card debt in the next four. Obama totally got the spending under control, got the deficit way back on track, then indirectly got the stock market up 3 fold. If you business was worth $12mil in 2000, down to $7mil in 2008 and now worth $20mil in 2016. Watch how Trump will fuck this up, pretty clear pattern that people can't learn from.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2017, 10:53:15 pm
content: Quote from: mtdoc on May 10, 2017, 09:01:09 pmIt's really not as simple as either side tries to make it. In some ways my standard of living is much higher than that of my parents. Houses are bigger, things that were once extravagant luxuries are now ordinary. When I was a kid I knew one rich kid who's family had a bigscreen TV and now everybody has them. Necessities like housing, food, utilities and other general costs are much higher. For now it's great that we can all have so many toys, but we're borrowing against our future to obtain them. We've spent decades trading our long term prosperity for short term gain, it's the American way. Look at how most people live and then consider that the country as a whole is largely a reflection of the individuals in it.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2017, 10:59:47 pm
content: Quote from: yada on May 10, 2017, 09:14:18 pmIs this sarcasm?The deficits from Obama's 8 years of budgeting total $6.6 trillion. You'll have to excuse my eyebrow raise at the idea that is evidence of either getting "spending under control" or getting the deficit "back on track".

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2017, 12:06:55 am
content: Quote from: james_s on May 10, 2017, 10:53:15 pmWe all have our anecdotes, personal experiences and subjective criteria for "standard of living". Large screen TVs may mean something to some people but they are hardly a measure of standard of living. Even anecdotally, comparing oneself to parents has little meaning due differences in education, circumstance, luck, etc.But as far as wages go, the facts show that middle class incomes have fallen behind in recent decades.This statement is supported by multiple data sets. In fact, just last month the NBER published an anaylysis ofLifetime Incomes in the United States over Six Decades(Full paper can be foundhere). One key finding:"from the cohort that entered the labor market in 1967 to the cohort that entered in 1983, median lifetime income of men declined by 10%–19%. We find little-to-no rise in the lower three-quarters of the percentiles of the male lifetime income distribution during this period".FromThe Washington Post summary of the research:"For instance, the typical 27-year-old man’s annual earnings in 2013 were 31 percent less than those of a typical 27-year-old man in 1969. The data suggest that today’s young men are unlikely to make up for that decline by earning more in the future.Women have done much better than men. More women have entered the labor force and taken on more prestigious and remunerative careers. Still, women are making less than men over their working years, and women’s rising earnings have not made up for the decline in men’s incomes for the population as a whole. Recently, women’s progress has stalled, in part due to the financial crisis. The typical female worker who was 27 in 2013 made no more than the typical woman of that age did in 1980""America is getting richer every year. The American worker is not.Far from it: On average, workers born in 1942 earned as much or more over their careers than workers born in any year since, according to new research — and workers on the job today shouldn’t expect to catch up with their predecessors in their remaining years of employment.Stagnant or falling earnings have put a squeeze on working- and middle-class households. The trend has also widened the gap between the rich and everyone else as, overall, the economy has continued to grow overall but the bulk of those gains have ended up in the pockets of the affluent."Quote from: james_s on May 10, 2017, 10:53:15 pmYep. Exactly.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2017, 12:28:39 am
content: Quote from: sokoloff on May 10, 2017, 10:59:47 pmLet's try to keep politics out of this as much as possible. For all the blame and praise that various presidents get, driving the economy is not really their job, it's other branches of the government that set the budget and make most of the economic decisions. The elephant in the room is our gigantic "defense" expenditures, the amount spent meddling and fighting wars in other nations dwarfs the cost of all the domestic stuff people bicker about. I can't think of a president in my lifetime that has not got us into or kept us in some stupid war.

author: t_ryner
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2017, 12:46:48 am
content: Let's keep out of politics, guys. Political debates are for politicians, not electricians. I don't want a political turf war to start on a site dedicated to electrical engineering.Quote from: james_s on May 11, 2017, 12:28:39 amLet's try to keep politics out of this as much as possible. For all the blame and praise that various presidents get, driving the economy is not really their job, it's other branches of the government that set the budget and make most of the economic decisions. The elephant in the room is our gigantic "defense" expenditures, the amount spent meddling and fighting wars in other nations dwarfs the cost of all the domestic stuff people bicker about. I can't think of a president in my lifetime that has not got us into or kept us in some stupid war.

author: Galenbo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2017, 05:16:38 pm
content: Quote from: t_ryner on May 11, 2017, 12:46:48 amFirst ban politicians out of technics and science.We had a socialist minister who was caught she doesn't know square root 25, but "successfully" implemented the multimillion IPCC scam into our energy system.

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2017, 06:25:12 pm
content: ...because the evidence of AGW is incontrovertible, didn't you know?

author: bson
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 11, 2017, 07:00:05 pm
content: Quote from: MarkS on May 05, 2017, 12:19:32 amI've lived here 23 years, but I'm on my way out now. California will do just fine, but the government is so incompetent and openly hostile to business, while treating us the people like backwards idiots who can't be trusted, that I personally have had enough. It has gotten much worse the last 5 years or so; I think what's happening is it attracts a certain kind of menial, vapid personality which then reinforces the situation, leading to a downwards spiral. Regardless, it's time to move on.

author: yada
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2017, 08:17:10 pm
content: Quote from: sokoloff on May 10, 2017, 10:59:47 pmLook at the rate Bush was borrowing and spending. He spent more money faster the any other president. Then look at the rate when Obama took office. People forget Bush started with the largest surplus in America's history then turned it into the largest deficit in the countries history. Obama started with that debt and reduced it, and it continues to *slowly* decline. Just out of curiosity where do you get your news from? This is a serious question because I have noticed that with talking to americans (on the internet) the ones that watch FOXNews seem to have no clue whats going on in their own country, and even less knowledge of how economics work. I have heard many times that people think that Obama care is bad but the affordable care act is good, when they are the same thing. Also many people who need health care will still vote against it because the news told them it was bad, or they make everything a this OR that issue. Like "Are you for the war or against the troops?", but in reality if you are for the troops you are against the war by default. You should see all the trump voters who are going to lose their house because of that useless wall. But unlike Britain where they want a redo on the Brexit thing (they realized it was a mistake and wish they hadn't voted for it), Americans still say they would vote for Trump again. It amazes me that Bush won TWICE, how stupid is that?

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2017, 09:17:37 pm
content: I have to agree with the other posters that this isn't the place for politics, so I'll skip the rest of my reply.PM me if you would like to genuinely exchange ideas, though I don't expect either of us to be among the first two people to change our minds after a carefully constructed argument on the internet.(For the record, I don't watch FoxNews. I mostly consume news by reading; what I do watch on TV tends to be financial news [typically CNBC] or local weather.)

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2017, 09:27:52 pm
content: What we're seeing around the world is state capture in country after country. It started decades ago with the creation of the so called "global economic governance" institutions, especially the WTO, with its G A T S which attempts to lock down services, turning all the essential needs of humanity into corporate properties.They are trying to create an illusion of legitimacy, 'manufacturing consent'.Parties are "captured", if they weren't, the real powers that be wouldn't let them have any access to the media at all. That happened to Bernie Sanders despite his not blowing the whistle on the aforementioned FTA that blocked his whole platform and trying to turn his voters over to the front runner. He still didn't get news coverage. It recently came out in court that the Democratic party primary here (which he lost) was completely rigged, and the DNCs lawyers when confronted with evidence of that, claimed that was okay.So right now we're being treated to an entirely fake healthcare "debate" as HC like all other services (unless they are "supplied neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers") are now completely rigged in the WTO, it started in 1995.This means there is a one way fish trap - all the deregulation ratchets in and becomes permanent and irreversible. And all the good things that were added in "Obamacare" will "have to be" rolled back. Rules say it! Because of a "standstill" in the "understanding on committments in financial services" a document added to the services agreement in 1998!So, since we didn't pass a functional health care system, such as single payer before 1995, we're likely going to be stuck forever with the worst deal of any country, to show the others that we mean business, a scheme that leads us into medical tourism being the only "affordable" health care plan for a good chunk of the country. Of course they will claim its required.This is no joke, its a serious crime, a crime against humanity. Because they have been needlessly keeping our health care in a state of dysfunction for 20 years on purpose. And a lot of people have needlessly died in that time. And they have no intention of ever fixing it, unless they can use those jobs and those patients to get something they want.The multilateral system is completely wrong on so many things, the economics is wrong, trickle down is wrong, its lowering the quality of work, its an extremist, cult like ideology, which they hide.They are desperate people, doing things they know are wrong (or they wouldn't hide it like they do) Despite the huge cost which will be paid by the people of our country..We cant afford these arrogant politicians lies any more.

author: josecamoessilva
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2017, 10:32:12 pm
content: Quote from: yada on May 11, 2017, 08:17:10 pmAhem...

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2017, 11:23:35 pm
content: Its true, the US national debt has historically gone down under Democrats and risen under the GOP.

author: retrolefty
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2017, 11:47:04 pm
content: Shame on those wishing to pollute a really cool EE forum with a bunch of partisan opinions. There are plenty of political forums of all flavors in which to agree or troll the topics they engage in. Both parties claim to be the protector of the middle class, but can't even agree on a standard metric of what comprises being a part of the 'middle class' because there is no operational definition of what middle is:Quote25% to 66% is quite a variation for something everyone seems to have a firm opinion on.

author: mtdoc
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2017, 12:07:54 am
content: Regardless of how one defines it, thenon-partisanfacts are pretty clear: In the U.S. over the past few decadesneitherpolitical party has protected the middle class.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2017, 12:24:18 am
content: The EU writing on the proposed taxation focuses on server appliances and applications and you may e able to find it by searching on the phrase "mode five" .GATS mode four is "movement of natural persons" and "mode five" appears to be a play on that commonly used phrase. Similarly the phrase "labour mobility" has a meaning similar to that of mode four, and "patient mobility" means exporting/importing patients in the context of government subsidized healthcare. The rules encouraging international trade (and minimally trade restrictive requirements for a country's domestic regulation, don't kick in miles some government money is involved, or a change of some kind, especially signing a trade agreement)Under these agreements the best thing you can do is nothing, because the ratcheting otherwise makes it so every new change has to be more profitable to MNCs.some new rule which a government has made subsequent to all these new agreements, whose goal is increasing competition between workers.Quote from: blueskull on 2017-05-06, 23:10:15

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2017, 05:57:29 am
content: Quote from: cdev on May 11, 2017, 11:23:35 pmCitation, please.According to the figures I see (below), the last US president to reduce the debt was Calvin Coolidge. The fact that he was a Republican is almost meaningless, because it was so long ago. Both parties are to blame at this point, which really means the American populace is to blame.https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-and-percent-3306296

author: GeorgeOfTheJungle
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2017, 07:46:58 am
content: Those problems you mention, galloping debts and loss of middle class, exist all over Europe as well.

author: T3sl4co1l
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2017, 08:52:50 am
content: Amazingly enough, Presidents (and PMs and nobles and so on) have very little if anything to do with the day-to-day economic output of the countries they represent.Plotted against the average alignment of Congress (or Parliament, etc.) (that is: conservative or liberal, authoritarian or democratic), you might see a small correlation, but meh.Fact is, both parties represent a huge,and largely overlappinginterest group. Neither party wants poor business, therefore neither party will have a statistically significant impact on the economy.It is only the childish people who believe the lie that "the two parties are diametrically opposite" who think one or the other does.Sadly, they make up 90% of the voting population, which is, again, as they (the politicians) prefer it: an already committed, and easily manipulated, voting base means easier re-election.(By the way, the fact that most countries do first-past-the-post voting also reinforces the two-party, or few-party, system. It's easily seen that this is the case: even the lamest voter understands that voting for a 3rd party is "throwing your vote away". You only have two real choices, and you only get a winning vote if you vote for the winner, period; if you vote for any loser, your vote means nothing. It's an all-or-nothing decision. The least possible degree of representation you can get from a voting process.)Tim