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Non-Tech : Kirk's Market Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kirk © who wrote (4838)	6/12/2017 11:37:40 AM
From: Sam	Respond to of 26596

Kirk, Glenn recently started a thread that is dedicated to that very topic: Subject 59841

To: Kirk © who wrote (4838)	6/12/2017 11:39:30 AM
From: rdkflorida2	3 Recommendations Recommended By Investor Clouseau POKERSAM toccodolce Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 26596

How about USI > (Universal Supplemental Income) You have to be working to get it. And let's have a national sales tax and move to elimination of the income tax. Let's get some income from the cheaters in the cash economy. Thoughts?

To: Kirk © who wrote (4838)	6/12/2017 11:45:52 AM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26596

Not that I really want to get involved in talking about this issue at moment, but-- The biggest question for me is "who would wash the dishes and clean tables at restaurants as not everyone will get to express their creativity as a cook." That seems to me to be an engineering problem. Most of the process can and will be automated over the next decade or two. It has already begun. Bussing dishes, bringing food to tables and waiting on tables has already begun to be automated in China and Japan (despite China's predilection for giving people all sorts of menial work like opening doors rather than having them going jobless). And Panera (to take but one example) has begun experimenting with having people input their orders and pay on an in-house computer, then pick them up at the counter. Of course there are other jobs besides in restaurants and perhaps you can think of some that would be difficult to replace with computers and/or robotic machines. But my suspicion is, it would be a failure of our imagination rather than intrinsic to the task itself. Then the problem becomes, what do humans do with this astonishing and unprecedented power? How will we organize ourselves?

To: Kirk © who wrote (4838)	6/12/2017 3:21:52 PM
From: Glenn Petersen	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 26596

Is some form of UBI a way to utopia is the road to ruin? Perhaps there is a middle ground. As a society, we have already made the decision to provide a safety net to those individuals and families that need assistance. A modified targeted basic income could be paid directly to those individuals who require assistance. Those payments could serve as a substitute for the myriad of means-tested programs currently in place. You would eliminate the cost of the paternalistic government bureaucrats overseeing most of the programs and give the recipients the dignity that comes from the ability to prioritize those needs that are most important to them. It could be cost neutral. You could also structure the program to provide incentives to the recipients to seek employment, either by not penalizing them for earning additional income or at least not reducing their basic income on a dollar-for-dollar basis as their earnings increase. A truly universal income would be far more complicated and would require tax increases that are politically unpalatable. Who knows, it may not be needed. Hopefully, the introduction of increasingly sophisticated robotics and artificial intelligence apps create new jobs as they eliminate old jobs. If not, we're screwed. Which is why it is important to roll out some pilot programs to test the concept. By the end of the year there should be pilot programs up in running in Helsinki, Ubrecht, Barcelona, Ontario, Oakland and Kenya. Probably other places as well. Better to test the concept now before we have an employment crisis. As for those unwashed dishes, we can put the newly unemployed bureaucrats to work. :)