Price increases and shortages

flowerbug

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... Government will see we have everything we need...... truth from the mouth of babes

if a lot of production is being done by robots where are they being wrong in that idea? isn't that what is coming anyways? tax the robots, feed the people, it all still gets done. those who don't want to work can do other things. that's how it has been for ever since the first cave dweller decided that they could get someone else to give them food if they told interesting stories or made up some religion or painted a picture on the wall of the cave...
 

seedcorn

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Don’t understand “tax the robots and feed the people”. Machines pay no taxes. People that live on government money only get it from those of us that do work. That includes dead beat politicians. Doesn’t include SS or Medicare as we paid for them over 46 years & now get 10% back what we paid in-if we are lucky.

Did anyone else have to read the story about the ants and grasshoppers?
 

seedcorn

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Average of 369 million gallons of gas used in USA per day. With the +$2 increase, that is an extra $738M of profit per DAY. Oil, grease and diesel are even worse……. As was said in Nixon years, follow the money.
 

Pulsegleaner

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if a lot of production is being done by robots where are they being wrong in that idea? isn't that what is coming anyways? tax the robots, feed the people, it all still gets done. those who don't want to work can do other things. that's how it has been for ever since the first cave dweller decided that they could get someone else to give them food if they told interesting stories or made up some religion or painted a picture on the wall of the cave...
Could go a lot of ways. Ideally, automation should eliminate not the need to do work, but the need to do work you don't want to do just to make enough money to stay alive. In other words a world where following your life's ambitions or inclinations does not ever need to be put aside for considerations of earning a steady enough income to make a living. I imagine that we might get a lot more artists, writers, inventors, researchers and so on if fewer people had to concern themselves with just making ends meet. Most people DO like to work, if the work is something they are fond of and are appreciated for.

Unfortunately, the far more likely outcome is that the rich and powerful will simply take advantage of automation to continually shrink the available job pool in the name of ever increasing profits for themselves. Ultimately, they only way a human can economically out compete a machine in a task is to be able to do it better than the machine, or cheaper than the machine, and, with the ever constant march of technology, both of those are only temporary things. The moment it becomes more cost effective to use a machine to do a job, those in control with turn the job over to a machine. Theoretically, governments can put a hold on this process legally (the same way they can put a stop to ever lower pay by having a minimum wage) but since we live in a world where the rich elite ALSO have a disproportionate amount of the political power, and can often more or less tell the government to do whatever they want them to do, such laws are probably not long to last (anymore than minimum wage will if the elite get any more power). Eventually, the only way for a person to be able to get work will be to agree to do more and more for less and less money, until we are basically back at a wage slave for food and shelter situation. And then even THAT will no longer be cost effective enough for those in power, and the masses will simply be left to starve to death. A lot of companies will then collapse (since, with no money, the populace will have no ability to BUY any of the products being produced.) But the true elite, the idle rich, probably won't care much, as they'll simply retire into a fantasy world of robots and machines catering to their every personal whim while they sit and do nothing.

The Worst part of this is that even a revolt might not necessarily stop this. By the time that people get so fed up they are willing to rise up and topple the system, conditions may have reached the point where we NEED those machines to make enough products to keep us all alive, it may literally be TOO MUCH for us to be able to handle on our own anymore. Luddism usually doesn't work long term, and trying to stop the march of technological advancement long term is pretty hard. Not to mention that, to the average person the option of starving to death while free is NOT necessarily better then being fed while being a slave. Freedom ISN'T worth their lives to many people (if it was, then any long term slavery system would crumble pretty quickly, as every slave would either revolt or commit suicide as soon as you got them). Freedom and dignity is a noble goal, but noble goals don't fill bellies or protect you from the rain.
 

Pulsegleaner

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I'm not sure if it counts as a price increase, but, in terms of shortages, I have noticed that the supply of mineral water(s) and other bottled waters around here has become really low. Probably because most of them are imported and all of the ships are stuck.

I also noted that the food sections of places like Home Goods are shrinking dramatically and getting emptier and emptier. Probably import issues again (though the fact that the remainders they stock from closed stores should have offset that, as a LOT of stores are probably closing their doors as a results of the long term economic effects of COVID.)

My only concern is that, if supplies get low enough they eliminate the sections, they might not bring them back when times get better.
 

Dirtmechanic

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Don’t understand “tax the robots and feed the people”. Machines pay no taxes. People that live on government money only get it from those of us that do work. That includes dead beat politicians. Doesn’t include SS or Medicare as we paid for them over 46 years & now get 10% back what we paid in-if we are lucky.

Did anyone else have to read the story about the ants and grasshoppers?
Actually, between tariffs and sales taxes and property taxes that distinction is blurred. Here the power company paid almost 800 million in taxes by itself last year. The State Triples property tax on utilities and doubles it on business property. They are obviously incentivized to go where the money is and dig it out at the source.
 

flowerbug

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by tax the robots i mean tax the robot owners just as you would take payroll taxes from a company for an employee and send it to Social Security or for Medicare.
 

Dirtmechanic

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by tax the robots i mean tax the robot owners just as you would take payroll taxes from a company for an employee and send it to Social Security or for Medicare.
Yeah I know. But I should have gone further into the sausage and pointed to the problem being created that pushes some on this point as well. I have 2 immigrant kids working on some kind of federal work permission. They have been given what amounts to a social security number on the W9 forms but its more like a fein or business entity number because I cannot hire them as W2 workers. That means no 10% employer tax for medicare and social security. No weekly income tax or medicare or unemployment insurance or social security contribution either. Sure they may pay some taxes to stay in the country but its just odd. And there are as many of them as immigrants coming over the border. I have seen nothing that explains it to me either. I see the tax the robot idea as socialists flailing about looking for revenue because the immigrants are not allowed to participate. Definitely nobody that understands private property making these choices out there. For example, while these boys cannot start a company here, they can buy an existing one. Then they have a balance sheet and better deductions than a w2 worker. About all that is left is taxing the assets or the sales of the company. If they aquire paper liabilities it would offset their income on the company, see? Anyway, the more there are the more there will be, as established immigrants often get paid very well to assist others who intend to come here. I have learned more from those two kids than I want to know.
 
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seedcorn

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Actually, between tariffs and sales taxes and property taxes that distinction is blurred. Here the power company paid almost 800 million in taxes by itself last year. The State Triples property tax on utilities and doubles it on business property. They are obviously incentivized to go where the money is and dig it out at the source.
What tariffs on USA companies? Foreign yes as they don’t play by the rules-slave labor, no OSHA rules, etc. what give away government programs have done is make the last few generations lazy and entitled. So there is little incentive to educate yourself or work. Property taxes don’t work that way in Indiana as business will relocate if forced to pay property taxes. As far as utility companies, they just pass on any additional taxes in the form of rate hikes.
 

Dirtmechanic

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What tariffs on USA companies? Foreign yes as they don’t play by the rules-slave labor, no OSHA rules, etc. what give away government programs have done is make the last few generations lazy and entitled. So there is little incentive to educate yourself or work. Property taxes don’t work that way in Indiana as business will relocate if forced to pay property taxes. As far as utility companies, they just pass on any additional taxes in the form of rate hikes.
Tariffs are basically what Richard Nixon gave us when they snickered that "Only Nixon could go to China". You should call them a Federal Sales Tax or more appropriately a Federal Wholesale Tax on imports. To my knowledge nothing like that exists for domestic production. The Dick helped ensure that the income stream would favor global companies over domestics. Occasionally the government gets it right. I import from China. I pay 25% in Federal and State and local taxes plus freight. We are a service and don't sell product. Sort of like a painter or wall paper hanger. One of the domestic importers I shopped told me that one of his customers imports 500 high cube trailers per day. Those are the 40 foot long ones. Lotsa tariff money. Happy longshoremen unions and Trucker unions as well if you remember the Nixon years.
 

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