Re: the future long term financial apocalypse of the USA

On 5/15/2024 12:04 PM, Paul S Person wrote:

On Wed, 15 May 2024 08:30:22 -0400, Cryptoengineer
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
 

On 5/11/2024 12:00 PM, Paul S Person wrote:

On Fri, 10 May 2024 21:02:21 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
wrote:
>

Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:

On 5/10/2024 1:46 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote:

Lynn McGuire <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> writes:

For those who are interested in the future long term financial
apocalypse of the USA

>
More dystopian fiction.   Talk about depressing.

>
Yup, just like reality.
>
USA Social Security sent me a letter the other day and said that if I
wait until I am 67 to start taking SS, they will give me $4,000/month.
That is an amazing number.  I am wondering that they are going to send a
hit man instead, much cheaper.

>
Talk to congress,  they've had plenty of warnings and decades to
alleviate the problem, but the fucking unelected grover norquist
has screwed us all.
>
Corporations, who benefit from stable employees, should be
contributing to SS.    They should (as per Warren Buffet)
be paying their fair share, rather than leaching off the
American public.

>
As others have pointed, they are. And, if this one or that one isn't,
it's going find itself in deep kimshee.
>
OTOH, requiring them to determine what they would be paying their
robotic workers if they were replaced by humans and paying payroll
taxes on /that/ might be one way of funding Social Security and
Medicare [1]. And ... adjust ... the cost/benefit analysis of
replacing humans with robots a bit.
>
[1] If they are already doing this, feel free to tell me. If this is
not practical politically, I agree. Have a nice day.

>
What's a 'robot worker'? Replacement usually isn't going to be firing
a human, and putting a humanoid robot in his/her place. How many humans
did a farm tractor replace? An electronic database vs clerks and file
cards?
>
There's not a one-for-one equivalent.

 An article about one of the smaller (population-wise) States -- the
States devastated by the export of jobs -- the States filled with
red-blooded white American males itching to work for a living --
explored this.
 A factory opened and started a 10-person line. After trying for
months, they found a total of 8 locals (out of a much larger number of
unemployed potential workers) who were willing and able to show up
clean and sober five days a week and work 8 hours a day. Everybody
else preferred ... a different lifestyle. Including most white
American males. The 8 did the work, but with a lot of jumping from
position to position.
 So the brought in two robots to finish the line. The /article's/ point
was that reality and Republican dogma are at variance. No news there.
My point is that the business should be paying their payroll taxes for
the two robots just as if they were humans. Based on whatever they pay
the humans, or paid them in the past, adjusted for inflation if no
current human employees exist to provide an amount.
 The goal, after all, is to keep Social Security going. Allowing robots
to replace workers isn't going to help with that if payroll taxes are
only paid on the humans. And the cost of the payroll taxes should
affect the cost/benifit analysis of when and where to use them.

We're faced with a demographic collapse - there are fewer and fewer
working people to provide for more and more retirees. We've managed
so far partly by improving productivity.
However, more and more of the excess from the productivity increase
is being held by fewer and fewer people. To re balance this, we need
significant income and wealth distribution.

OTOH, sending every adult in the country, say, $4K/mo and then taxing
the heck out of any income over $48K might work. Particularly as
people lose interest in working and robots take over their jobs. It
could even use a single rate, applicable to all, since those not
making very much would be making their $48K ($96K for married couples,
of course, plus $48K for each dependent). At last! A single-rate
proposal that everyone can support!

I think some form of UBI is the only sustainable solution.
pt