Point taken. Also, capitalism unbridled nearly removed bison from the Earth and does have a corrupt and destructive side, which is why I said "The best we can hope for is enough regulation to keep naked greed in check and enough awareness and respect (even if only by consumer pressure) for social responsibilities to keep behaviors in line with such sentiments."
I picked up an interesting debate on whether the financial superstructure was safer or not than 2008. On the "pro" side was a former Federal Reserve officer. The "con" side was a former financial heavy hitter from, I think, Goldman-Sachs. I must say that I was more convinced of the "con" side and the banks keep pressing more and more to get back to where they can gamble with depositors' money...
Yep. Beat me to it. When a resource is commonly owned (bison at the time) it tends to be destroyed. When you have private ownership (cows, chickens, pigs) the resource is protected. We don't have a shortage of chicken.
Over the years the greatest concern I have seen from the financial industry has been the Federal Reserve's, from Greenspan forward, unwillingness to allow a workout of excess capacity in banking or commerce in our system. Consequently we have gone from one bubble, technology to the next, housing. The prevailing attitude has been...we will inflate our problem away. It is undeniable if we look at a DOW of 8,200 in 2009 to a high of over 26,000 in 2018. No one could possible argue that there has been value creation to that magnitude. It is essentially the Fed printing press at work. A government entity creating money by purchasing its own debt and essentially providing free paper to the banking system. I might add, effectively robbing every holder of paper assets in the process.
My default position is to oppose welfare/subsidies (especially at the federal level) for able-bodied adults for many reasons. But, since the political reality is that these programs will exist, I'm curious to learn more about UBI. Perhaps it is a less bad alternative to what we have now.
I'm a leftist, so this may surprise some but I have reservations about UBI. I think wellness is both parts of surety in your survival and fulfillment from doing things that have merit/worth. I think the UBI idea works well enough for keeping the consumption machine churning but doesn't really take into account that I imagine depression, self-harm, and violence will likely rise due to complacency and lack of life direction.
Some form of this will be a necessity in the years to come, when automation replaces mundane jobs that employ millions of Americans.
You are most likely correct to one degree or another that this will happen sooner or later. I read last night about a Chinese AI that was able to diagnose childhood illnesses as well as a PA (physician's assistant). China has an advantage in this area due to data availability/sharing while privacy and the fractured data systems in the US hamper development. For at least a while after development I can see humans being needed to assure proper operations and being able to get out of unusual situations (and public reassurance/jobs PR). Some job areas will take longer than others, but it may very well happen in my lifetime. We will likely see employment shift toward technical skills even further and oversight, but when machines begin to design and perhaps conceptualize better than humans then what? Skynet, here we come!
This shouldn't be a surprise, since the weaker banks got shaken out. However, the "con" debater I mentioned pointed out the constant pressure by the banking industry to go back to the pre-2008 rules, including drastically reducing reserve requirements and eliminating the now-mandatory "stress tests." Life was just a lot more profitable for them back then...
And - we're stuck with a president who wants to return us to the 1950s, with happy miners in blackface and every little town full of puffing smoke stacks...
You are accurate but that is a bit over the horizon. Much further than, say, an ecological catastrophe due to carbon emissions and runaway consumption. UBI has some blindspots though. It isn't a cure all because we still don't know what to do with a society where most have no economic utility.
The point that I was making is that the Fed pumping money into the system to stave off the effects of the tech bust led directly to the housing bubble with the corresponding development of derivative instruments of mass destruction that led to the failure of the banking system. Instead of allowing a work out following the housing crisis the Fed has stepped in and re-inflated the credit market and the equity markets with its easy money policy. A good question to measure that today would be to ask oneself how many auto loans would be in default and how much credit card debt would be in default in an economic downturn. We just saw a glimpse of that with the government shutdown.
I don’t think it’s that far. When did the smart phone first come out?
