The Answer Isn't Socialism; It's Capitalism That Better Spreads the Benefits

[Matt1970]

Reich is correct. The American conservative economic agenda will not promote American prosperity.

Not quite pal. Reich is going well beyond attacking the Conservative agenda and moved right into attacking Capitalism itself.

 

[Matt1970]

Your choice of labels for things says a lot about how deeply trapped you are in your own ideology.

The government will pay for increased medicare enrollments. Presumably since everyone in the US will be on public insurance in that situation, private insurance costs will decline hugely. If the US stops spending $1 trillion on private health care and starts spending $1 trillion on public health care, it's awfully hard to see that as 'costing' $1 trillion.

BS. Everything the Governemt does from Education to Retirement costs twice as much as the private secotor does. Why on earth would you think health Insurance would be any different?

 

[Ausm]

BS. Everything the Governemt does from Education to Retirement costs twice as much as the private secotor does. Why on earth would you think health Insurance would be any different?

LMAO....

 

[woolfe9999]

Not quite pal. Reich is going well beyond attacking the Conservative agenda and moved right into attacking Capitalism itself.

Who cares what ideology he attacks or supports, and to what degree? You think you've refuted an argument by calling someone a "socialist?" The fact is, there is no such thing as pure capitalism or pure socialism. All successful economies on earth are mixed. Accordingly, these labels are not very useful.

Your pre-occupation with ideologies, labels and semantics is the real problem here. Some of us are actually concerned about economic prosperity in this country, and what policies will support or detract from it. That is the real substance here and I have yet to hear a response.

Tell us why a flat (i.e. non-progressive) tax, yanking all safety nets for the poor and elderly, divesting workers of union rights, getting rid of the minimum wage, etc. will help the economy. Defend your own policy views.

- wolf

 

[Ldir]

LOL look who you are talking to..

That is for sure. His strength is shilling, not thinking.

 

[Ldir]

BS. Everything the Governemt does from Education to Retirement costs twice as much as the private secotor does.

Prove it.

 

[fskimospy]

BS. Everything the Governemt does from Education to Retirement costs twice as much as the private secotor does. Why on earth would you think health Insurance would be any different?

Except of course for Medicare. The easiest way to compare this is the Medicare Advantage program that allows seniors to use private insurance instead of Medicare. On a per patient basis, privatized Medicare Advantage plans cost considerably more than Medicare does. The private sector is doing the same job as the government here, but for more money.

But hey, OMGSOCIALISM, right?

 

[Ldir]

of the Productivity Revolution

By Robert Reich

Francois Hollande's victory doesn't and shouldn't mean a movement toward socialism in Europe or elsewhere. Socialism isn't the answer to the basic problem haunting all rich nations.

The answer is to reform capitalism. The world's productivity revolution is outpacing the political will of rich societies to fairly distribute its benefits. The result is widening inequality coupled with slow growth and stubbornly high unemployment.

In the United States, almost all the gains from productivity growth have been going to the top 1 percent, and the percent of the working-age population with jobs is now lower than it's been in more than thirty years (before the vast majority of women moved into paid work).

Inequality is also growing in Europe, along with chronic joblessness. Europe is finding it can no longer afford generous safety nets to catch everyone who has fallen out of the working economy.

Consumers in China are gaining ground but consumption continues to shrink as a share of China's increasingly productive economy, while inequality in China is soaring. China's wealthy elites are emulating the most conspicuous consumption of the rich in the West.

At the heart of the productivity revolution are the computers, software, and the Internet that have found their way into the production of almost everything a modern economy creates. Factory workers are being replaced by computerized machine tools and robotics; office workers, by software applications; professionals, by ever more specialized apps; communications and transportation workers, by the Internet.

Some work continues to be outsourced abroad to very low-wage workers in developing nations but this is not the major cause of the present trend. This work now comprises such a tiny fraction of the costs of production that it's becoming cheaper for companies to do more of it at home with computers and software, and even bring back some of it ("in-source") from abroad.

Consumers in rich nations are reaping some of the benefits of the productivity revolution in the form of lower prices or more value for the money -- consider the cost of color TVs, international phone calls, or cross-country flights compared to what they were before.

But most of the gains are going to the shareholders who own the companies, and to the relatively small number of very talented (or very lucky and well-connected) managers, engineers, designers, and legal or financial specialists on whom the companies depend for strategic decisions about what to produce and how.

Increasingly, via stock options and bonuses, the owners and the "talent" are one and the same. While many other people indirectly own shares of stock through their pensions and 401-K plans, 90 percent of the value of all financial assets in the U.S. belongs to the richest 10 percent of the American population.

Meanwhile, a large number of low-paid service workers sell personalized comfort and attention -- something software can't do -- in the retail, restaurant, hotel, and hospital sectors (most U.S. job growth since 2009 has occurred here.) Others -- temps, contract workers, the under- and partially-employed, fill in where they can. A growing number are not working.

The problem is not that the productivity revolution has caused unemployment or under-employment. The problem is its fruits haven't been widely shared. Less work isn't a bad thing. Most people prefer leisure. A productivity revolution such as we are experiencing should enable people to spend less time at work and have more time to do whatever they'd rather do.

The problem comes in the distribution of the benefits of the productivity revolution. A large portion of the population no longer earns the money it needs to live nearly as well as the productivity revolution would otherwise allow. It can't afford the "leisure" its now experiencing involuntarily.

Not only is this a problem for them; it's also a problem for the overall economy. It means that a growing portion of the population lacks the purchasing power to keep the economy going. In the United States, consumers account for 70 percent of economic activity. If they as a whole cannot afford to buy all the goods and services the productivity revolution is generating, the economy becomes stymied. Growth is anemic; unemployment remains high.

That's why "supply-side" tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy are perverse. Corporations and the rich don't need more tax cuts; they're swimming in money as it is. The reason they don't invest in additional productive capacity and hire more people is they don't see a sufficient market for the added goods and services, which means an inadequate return on such investment.

But more Keynesian stimulus won't help solve the more fundamental problem. Although added government spending has gone some way toward filling the gap in demand caused by consumers whose jobs and incomes are disappearing, it can't be a permanent solution. Even if the wealthy paid their fair share of taxes, deficits would soon get out of control. Additional public investments in infrastructure and basic research and development can make the economy more productive - but more productivity doesn't necessarily help if a growing portion of the population can't absorb it.

What to do? Learn from our own history.

The last great surge in productivity occurred between 1870 and 1928, when the technologies of the first industrial revolution were combined with steam power and electricity, mass produced in giant companies enjoying vast economies of scale, and supplied and distributed over a widening system of rails. That ended abruptly in the Great Crash of 1929, when income and wealth had become so concentrated at the top (the owners and financiers of these vast combines) that most people couldn't pay for all these new products and services without going deeply and hopelessly into debt -- resulting in a bubble that loudly and inevitably popped.

If that sounds familiar, it should. A similar thing happened between 1980 and 2007, when productivity revolution of computers, software, and, eventually, the Internet spawned a new economy along with great fortunes. (It's not coincidental that 1928 and 2007 mark the two peaks of income concentration in America over the last hundred years, in which the top 1 percent raked in over 23 percent of total income.)

But here's the big difference. During the Depression decade of the 1930s, the nation reorganized itself so that the gains from growth were far more broadly distributed. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 recognized unions' rights to collectively bargain, and imposed a duty on employers to bargain in good faith. By the 1950s, a third of all workers in the United States were unionized, giving them the power to demand some of the gains from growth. Meanwhile, Social Security, unemployment insurance, and worker's compensation spread a broad safety net. The forty-hour workweek with time-and-a-half for overtime also helped share the work and spread the gains, as did a minimum wage. In 1965, Medicare and Medicaid broadened access to health care. And a progressive income tax, reaching well over 70 percent on the highest incomes, also helped ensure that the gains were spread fairly.

This time, though, the nation has taken no similar steps. Quite the contrary: A resurgent right insists on even more tax breaks for corporations and the rich, massive cuts in public spending that will destroy what's left of our safety nets, including Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, fewer rights for organized labor, more deregulation of labor markets, and a lower (or no) minimum wage.

This is, quite simply, nuts.

And this is why a second Obama administration, should there be one, must focus its attention on more broadly distributing the gains from growth. This doesn't mean "redistributing" from rich to poor, as in a zero-sum game. To the contrary, the rich will do far better with a smaller share of a robust, growing economy than they're doing with a large share of an economy that's barely moving forward.

This will require real tax reform -- not just a "Buffett" minimal tax but substantially higher marginal rates and more brackets at the top, with a capital gains rate matching the income-tax rate. It also means a larger Earned Income Tax Credit, whose benefits extend high into the middle class. That will enable many Americans to move to a 35-hour workweek without losing ground -- thereby making room for more jobs.

It means Medicare for all rather than an absurdly-costly system that relies on private for-profit insurers and providers.

It will require limiting executive salaries and empowering workers to get a larger share of corporate profits. The Employee Free Choice Act should be an explicit part of the second-term agenda.

It will require strict limits on the voracious, irresponsible behavior of Wall Street, from which we've all suffered. The Glass-Steagall Act must be resurrected (the so-called Volcker Rule is more ridden with holes than cheese), and the big banks broken up.

And it will necessitate a public educational system - including early child education - second to none, and available to all our young people.

We don't need socialism. We need a capitalism that works for the vast majority. The productivity revolution should be making our lives better -- not poorer and more insecure. And it will do that when we have the political will to spread its benefits.
---------------
I was inspired to post this, 1. because I have been talking to LunarRay about economics and 2. because I just saw somebody in another thread mention what I call the 'conservative, fuck-yourself-in-the-ass, brain defect that makes progress in anything impossible. Where will the political will come from to save ourselves?

Would the conservatives care to explain why the ideas expressed above must never be implemented? You have been sold an enormous tons of garbage and I invite you to spew it here. I am looking for a fight and I also know I am right, that everything Rich says needs to happen does need to happen. So lay out your pathetic arguments and I'll prove it.

This is a great article. Thank you for sharing it.

 

[BoberFett]

As much as hardcore capitalists hate it, we are going to have to realize that just because something works at one point in time it doesn't mean it will always work. Many of you probably consider someone to be earning their keep when they work 40 hour a week jobs. It wasn't always that way.

In the past, as an agrarian society, everybody had to work a lot just to meet basic needs. Earning your keep meant you busted your ass all the time. If you weren't working you were sleeping. Farming was a sunup to sundown job just to keep the family fed.

And then one day while shooting at some food, somebody realized we could build a society based on oil. During the industrial revolution we decided that 40 hours was the proper amount of work to be done by an individual during a week. That worked at the time.

In the future, as automation increases further and further, less and less of the population will be required to keep things running. Are those the only people that should be paid? What happens when all the work in the world is done by machines? Just prior to the war (after which we'll all end up serving as batteries for our electronic overlords) how is the average person supposed to live? There's quite literally nothing for them to do all day. Machines build all products, provide all services. Machines even maintain the other machines.

We're a ways out from that, but you have to realize it will get there someday. We need to be willing to continually adjust expectations based on the state of the world.

 

[Jaskalas]

States are not the answer you are looking for. How would you test such a system in any state in the US when they could just move to a state not doing it? To do something of that scale would be an all or nothing approach. The idea of states trying this only sounds good and i agree. But it could never be given a fair shake doing it that way.

You say it cannot work because men are free to leave utopia. This must also be applied to countries as well. Why not simply move to Canada, or Mexico, or some other country?

I'll grant you it's easier to move between States, but the rich always have the means to flee. Your attempt to deny them that is somehow going to work?

 

[Matt1970]

Who cares what ideology he attacks or supports, and to what degree? You think you've refuted an argument by calling someone a "socialist?" The fact is, there is no such thing as pure capitalism or pure socialism. All successful economies on earth are mixed. Accordingly, these labels are not very useful.

Your pre-occupation with ideologies, labels and semantics is the real problem here. Some of us are actually concerned about economic prosperity in this country, and what policies will support or detract from it. That is the real substance here and I have yet to hear a response.

Tell us why a flat (i.e. non-progressive) tax, yanking all safety nets for the poor and elderly, divesting workers of union rights, getting rid of the minimum wage, etc. will help the economy. Defend your own policy views.

- wolf

You are putting words in my mouth now. I was never for a flat tax. Sure we all have some degree of socialism but to the degree Robert Reich is what will end up toppling nations or turning them into third world shitholes. Ask Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela

 

[fskimospy]

You are putting words in my mouth now. I was never for a flat tax. Sure we all have some degree of socialism but to the degree Robert Reich is what will end up toppling nations or turning them into third world shitholes. Ask Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela

Explain exactly what policies Reich is putting forth that you believe would topple nations or turn them into 3rd world shitholes? Be specific.

 

[PingviN]

I think you have a pretty warped view on socialism. Seems to me that what you're describing is social democracy, and we already have a lot of that.

 

[Matt1970]

Explain exactly what policies Reich is putting forth that you believe would topple nations or turn them into 3rd world shitholes? Be specific.

This will require real tax reform -- not just a "Buffett" minimal tax but substantially higher marginal rates and more brackets at the top, with a capital gains rate matching the income-tax rate. It also means a larger Earned Income Tax Credit, whose benefits extend high into the middle class. That will enable many Americans to move to a 35-hour workweek without losing ground -- thereby making room for more jobs.
Much higher taxes on the upper class and More Welfare for less work

It means Medicare for all rather than an absurdly-costly system that relies on private for-profit insurers and providers.

It will require limiting executive salaries and empowering workers to get a larger share of corporate profits. The Employee Free Choice Act should be an explicit part of the second-term agenda.
Government Mandated pay structers as well as mandated profit sharing on Private Companies

 

[Moonbeam]

As much as hardcore capitalists hate it, we are going to have to realize that just because something works at one point in time it doesn't mean it will always work. Many of you probably consider someone to be earning their keep when they work 40 hour a week jobs. It wasn't always that way.

In the past, as an agrarian society, everybody had to work a lot just to meet basic needs. Earning your keep meant you busted your ass all the time. If you weren't working you were sleeping. Farming was a sunup to sundown job just to keep the family fed.

And then one day while shooting at some food, somebody realized we could build a society based on oil. During the industrial revolution we decided that 40 hours was the proper amount of work to be done by an individual during a week. That worked at the time.

In the future, as automation increases further and further, less and less of the population will be required to keep things running. Are those the only people that should be paid? What happens when all the work in the world is done by machines? Just prior to the war (after which we'll all end up serving as batteries for our electronic overlords) how is the average person supposed to live? There's quite literally nothing for them to do all day. Machines build all products, provide all services. Machines even maintain the other machines.

We're a ways out from that, but you have to realize it will get there someday. We need to be willing to continually adjust expectations based on the state of the world.

I love you. And you used to make such fun of me for my fascination with AI.

 

[Ninjahedge]

BS. Everything the Governemt does from Education to Retirement costs twice as much as the private secotor does. Why on earth would you think health Insurance would be any different?

Because it is with the Military.

It also is with government employees.

You would think that an institution that has a record of sweet contracts that, when divvied up, reveal $500 hammers would have a much higher cost for things like Medical insurance....


But they don't.

Maybe it is just because keeping their soldiers alive makes sense (and costs less than finding and training new ones). You would think that if we had a system that already worked, and not on a tiny scale either, that we would be able to expand it in certain areas (especially in those with the most need and where the attraction of something like low COL would boost population levels) and do a test run.


But no. Big Insurance already knows that something like that will work, so better to make Aspirin illegal than to ruin the profits from the next generation of painkillers.

 

[fskimospy]

This will require real tax reform -- not just a "Buffett" minimal tax but substantially higher marginal rates and more brackets at the top, with a capital gains rate matching the income-tax rate. It also means a larger Earned Income Tax Credit, whose benefits extend high into the middle class. That will enable many Americans to move to a 35-hour workweek without losing ground -- thereby making room for more jobs.
Much higher taxes on the upper class and More Welfare for less work

It means Medicare for all rather than an absurdly-costly system that relies on private for-profit insurers and providers.

It will require limiting executive salaries and empowering workers to get a larger share of corporate profits. The Employee Free Choice Act should be an explicit part of the second-term agenda.
Government Mandated pay structers as well as mandated profit sharing on Private Companies

Okay. So countries like Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, etc, etc all have much higher taxes on the rich, in many cases nearing or exceeding 50% on the highest earners. All of those nations have a national, socialized health care system. He did not advocate government mandated pay structures or mandated profit sharing. The EFCA is about union certification. Regardless, those same previously mentioned countries generally have much stronger union protections than the US does and much lower executive compensation.

So yeah, no toppling of nations or North Koreas found. This is simply paranoid delusion.

 

[boomerang]

As much as hardcore capitalists hate it, we are going to have to realize that just because something works at one point in time it doesn't mean it will always work. Many of you probably consider someone to be earning their keep when they work 40 hour a week jobs. It wasn't always that way.

In the past, as an agrarian society, everybody had to work a lot just to meet basic needs. Earning your keep meant you busted your ass all the time. If you weren't working you were sleeping. Farming was a sunup to sundown job just to keep the family fed.

And then one day while shooting at some food, somebody realized we could build a society based on oil. During the industrial revolution we decided that 40 hours was the proper amount of work to be done by an individual during a week. That worked at the time.

In the future, as automation increases further and further, less and less of the population will be required to keep things running. Are those the only people that should be paid? What happens when all the work in the world is done by machines? Just prior to the war (after which we'll all end up serving as batteries for our electronic overlords) how is the average person supposed to live? There's quite literally nothing for them to do all day. Machines build all products, provide all services. Machines even maintain the other machines.

We're a ways out from that, but you have to realize it will get there someday. We need to be willing to continually adjust expectations based on the state of the world.

Clap, clap, clap!!!

I had high hopes based on the title of this thread and then I saw Robert Reich's name and it went to shit. But it's been resurrected.

Everyone should be aware of the benefits of attacking the root cause of a problem. So, what is the root cause of the problems we're experiencing today? IMO, politician's. Our power, the power of the people as our nation was crafted, has been bastardized beyond recognition. Our representatives no longer represent us, they represent evil forces (how's that for an all-encompassing term?). We need to take that power back.

Socialism is not the answer and capitalism needs to be kept in constraint. It's been allowed to run amuck. This is not a right/left thing. It's a restoring the power where it belongs thing.

The sooner we realize we're being divided along partisan lines for a reason and give those in power a big "fuck you" the better. We may disagree on exactly how to get where we want to go, but when the pot is being stirred constantly by those who hold the power (politician's) we never get a chance to come to our senses.

The bad news is that we can't change the course by voting them out. It's going to take something a lot more serious than that.

I had a long post many years ago here in which I philosophized about how the world would eventually abolish money. I wasn't sure how it would come about then and I'm no closer to figuring it out now, but I'm convinced it will happen one day. One thing I'm totally convinced of is that humans are nowhere near ready for it. I’m also convinced it’s the only true answer.

 

[Matt1970]

Okay. So countries like Germany, Finland, Sweden, Norway, etc, etc all have much higher taxes on the rich, in many cases nearing or exceeding 50% on the highest earners. All of those nations have a national, socialized health care system. He did not advocate government mandated pay structures or mandated profit sharing. The EFCA is about union certification. Regardless, those same previously mentioned countries generally have much stronger union protections than the US does and much lower executive compensation.

So yeah, no toppling of nations or North Koreas found. This is simply paranoid delusion.

Did you really play the Scandonavia card? Move there if you like it. Same with Germany but Germany has basicly isolated themselves and one thing they have in common with Scandonavia is not only a 50% tax on the Rich but 50% across the board. That wouldn't fly here. They are also born & bread to be factory workers which also wouldn't fly here.

 

[fskimospy]

Did you really play the Scandonavia card? Move there if you like it. Same with Germany but Germany has basicly isolated themselves and one thing they have in common with Scandonavia is not only a 50% tax on the Rich but 50% across the board. That wouldn't fly here. They are also born & bread to be factory workers which also wouldn't fly here.

lol@ 'the Scandanavia card'. You said a set of economic policies would make 'nations tumble' and result in a North Korea like economy. I pointed you to examples that do everything mentioned there and even more, yet they are prosperous nations. They explicitly disprove your thesis and you should at least be good enough to admit it.

 

[hal2kilo]

As much as hardcore capitalists hate it, we are going to have to realize that just because something works at one point in time it doesn't mean it will always work. Many of you probably consider someone to be earning their keep when they work 40 hour a week jobs. It wasn't always that way.

In the past, as an agrarian society, everybody had to work a lot just to meet basic needs. Earning your keep meant you busted your ass all the time. If you weren't working you were sleeping. Farming was a sunup to sundown job just to keep the family fed.

And then one day while shooting at some food, somebody realized we could build a society based on oil. During the industrial revolution we decided that 40 hours was the proper amount of work to be done by an individual during a week. That worked at the time.

In the future, as automation increases further and further, less and less of the population will be required to keep things running. Are those the only people that should be paid? What happens when all the work in the world is done by machines? Just prior to the war (after which we'll all end up serving as batteries for our electronic overlords) how is the average person supposed to live? There's quite literally nothing for them to do all day. Machines build all products, provide all services. Machines even maintain the other machines.

We're a ways out from that, but you have to realize it will get there someday. We need to be willing to continually adjust expectations based on the state of the world.

Quite a reasonable response. I would add though that the 40hr week arrived more recently than the industrial revolution and was due to the efforts of...unions.

 

[werepossum]

What's the point in quibbling with his choice of words, i.e. how he chooses to label something? I think we're entitled to infer that the semantic argument being advanced by conservatives in this thread does nothing but poorly mask their inability to actually confront the substantive points being made.

Reich is correct. The American conservative economic agenda will not promote American prosperity.

The point is that he is attempting to push socialism by calling it capitalism. Words mean things, else there's no point in people speaking at all. Such a blatant attempt at the Big Lie must mean that either he is abysmally stupid, or he is stupid enough to think himself clever and the rest of the country is abysmally stupid. (Note that I specifically do not rule out both; in fact, I'm leaning toward that explanation.) It's as if he gave a speech saying "We don't need internal combustion cars, we need electric cars, but electric cars with a gasoline engine and a small battery just big enough to start the engine and maybe play the radio."

I've no problem with Reich advocating whatever socioeconomic system he wishes to push. I have a big problem with Reich blatantly lying to do so. As to the "substantive points being made", they are no more than a tired old restating of socialism - that Government is both morally entitled and intellectually suited to control production, or more properly the rewards of production.

 

[Franz316]

In the future, as automation increases further and further, less and less of the population will be required to keep things running. Are those the only people that should be paid? What happens when all the work in the world is done by machines? Just prior to the war (after which we'll all end up serving as batteries for our electronic overlords) how is the average person supposed to live? There's quite literally nothing for them to do all day. Machines build all products, provide all services. Machines even maintain the other machines.

We're a ways out from that, but you have to realize it will get there someday. We need to be willing to continually adjust expectations based on the state of the world.

This is really the elephant in the room that is rarely addressed. Technology has, and will continue to displace people in the workforce. Automation is done to lower production costs. At the same time it displaces the same workers that buy the goods produced by the machines. This creates a massive contradiction in the creation of good and people's purchasing power. The more automated things become, means the more people that are out of work and means the less purchasing power they have which creates less demand for the goods in the first place.

I'm not sure how the market system is going to deal with this as it moves into more and more sectors. People can continue to argue over how to reduce unemployment but the fact remains. There are just not enough new jobs for the amount of people that need them. It may take a massive value shift in how people perceive the labor for income exchange to avoid having masses of 'technological refugees' who can hardly afford to eat.

Zerohedge actually ran a story today concerning this idea.

 

[Matt1970]

lol@ 'the Scandanavia card'. You said a set of economic policies would make 'nations tumble' and result in a North Korea like economy. I pointed you to examples that do everything mentioned there and even more, yet they are prosperous nations. They explicitly disprove your thesis and you should at least be good enough to admit it.

2 Exceptions does not a disprove make especially when nations have fallen under Socialism. We have basically priced ourselves out of having an economy like theirs. We buy the cheapest crap we can get our hands on which typically sends $$$ and jobs overseas. Germany and Scandinavia have protections in place we are too scared to implement. They don’t send the $$ we do overseas. Sure corporations have their blame in this as well but a lot of times making stuff in the US doesn’t make sense. I will differ from either side when it comes to these “Free Trade” agreements we have with nations that either sidestep it with other taxes or have almost no manufacturing to speak of.

 

[nehalem256]

This is really the elephant in the room that is rarely addressed. Technology has, and will continue to displace people in the workforce. Automation is done to lower production costs. At the same time it displaces the same workers that buy the goods produced by the machines. This creates a massive contradiction in the creation of good and people's purchasing power. The more automated things become, means the more people that are out of work and means the less purchasing power they have which creates less demand for the goods in the first place.

I'm not sure how the market system is going to deal with this as it moves into more and more sectors. People can continue to argue over how to reduce unemployment but the fact remains. There are just not enough new jobs for the amount of people that need them. It may take a massive value shift in how people perceive the labor for income exchange to avoid having masses of 'technological refugees' who can hardly afford to eat.

Zerohedge actually ran a story today concerning this idea.

It seems like the cost of production is basically

raw materials + capital goods (stores, machines, etc) + labor = cost

It seems that in the United States the value of physical labor has been significantly reduced. It is an interesting question say what percentage of the cost of a good at walmart is the labor of the employees at the store. Maybe by say increasing the costs by of goods there by 10% the employee wages could be doubled?

Why is it that a simple factory job is unionized? But most sales jobs are not?

What would be the effects to the economy of this I wonder?