Damn, no need to call me out. 
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Don’t knock me over while you move those goalposts!
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okay fine. some humans need to work. sure. we don’t have general robots yet.
But not everyone everywhere all at once.
I agree a certain level of poverty will always exist but there is a segment of the poor, the working poor, that are contributing positively to the economy but are rewarded at a level that does not enable them a reasonable standard of living. Some countries have a fairer national distribution of income and provide better social welfare programs than us to enable many more of these workers to live better lives.
There are international comparisons using standard measures of poverty that show the higher levels of poverty existing within the USA and Canada versus many European countries. I think we can do better than we have in enabling the poorer segments of our society to participate more fully in the economy. It is not just a matter of providing a basic support net for the very poor but introducing policies to make working conditions better for low income people. I am not just talking minimum wages but policies like subsidized day care, better paternity and maternity leaves, more sick days, etc.
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Part of the problem with increased housing expenses is the supply. More single family homes are being rented out or converted into AirBnB places, making home ownership more out of reach. Add to that local ordinances that make it more difficult to build new multi-family homes and people end up relying more on rentals.
I think about this a lot. And IMO, part of the problem is completely intractable.
If upper/middle class people buy doctors and professors. Then doctors and professors will get paid well. If doctors and professors are paid well, then they must be unaffordable to the poor. Any solution requires entitlements to keep pace with professional wages.
More fundamentally:
There’s no economic system that let’s allows everyone utilize a lot of services from highly educated people.
There’s no economic system that allows a lot of people to work late and retire early, and receive care on both ends.
This statement is so disconnected from reality it’s not worth debating.
yes, the reality is that most people still buy into the fact that we still need to work the same amount of hours despite significantly improved productivity.
The number of required work hours is a policy issue, not a reflection of reality.
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I don’t think so. Do you have a way to test that? Like comparison between industries or countries?
I suspect consolidation is part of the issue. The more consolidation, the larger portfolio per CEO.
And the rise of Technology is most of the issue. The S&P is full of companies like Apple, that have no real need for “median income workers”. Their wealth is derived by highly paid tech workers. And their CEOs are paid accordingly.
ding ding ding
So the policy you are advising for is that the government take all means of production and reallocate them to do everything for us and then we do nothing?
Oh no. There’s not much we can do about this society. It’s busted with no cure.
I’m lucky that I have a family with money and that I make good money too and don’t need to work much.
But, is the dream of mankind not to automate everything so that everyone can live an easy and happy life without needing to slave away for scraps? Wall-E is the dream (without destroying earth that is). A society where nobody needs to work is the goal, and not something to be ashamed of.
But at this rate, it’ll never be the dream, because automation is owned by a few.
Nah. Automation makes stuff cheaper.
But the point of this thread is that stuff isn’t everything. People want doctors and professors.
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There’s chatGPT for that
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We’ve had recorded lectures for decades now. People still want living breathing profs.
Maybe we’ll give up on that though.
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Are we sure they really want them? Or are they just following societal rules
Schools are still required by law
I imagine most people on here would have got through their actuarial exams with very little contact with a living breathing professor
We may not be a representative sample though.
Doctors/dentists can get through a lot more patients nowadays. It used to be that they were present for a whole half hour but now they have less qualified assistants do the common procedures and they come in for 5-10 minutes.
Remote consultation is more common too, so that a doctor doesn’t need to leave their computer unless it’s an unusual case.
In summary, the number of professionals required by society is getting smaller.
Are you saying we’re not normal?