100% Automated

In the end of the chain there will always be a human.

Jobs only getting distributed to maintenance and Engineering. But still humans will do this. Also I dont think that the ground work will be left to be fully automated.

who is going to swing the brush?

something that is 90% automated is fully automated in a sense that the leftover 10% can not be automated anymore.

My taking on this is that full automation will divide the society even more and we will have a sharper cut between blue collar and white collar workers with the skilled work middles class being deminished by machines.

I talked to a farmer who is farming now almost fully automated and all he needs is the service guys and skilled technicians to supervise the work. The good old farmboy has to have a high level education nowadays to get around. Maybe an engienering degree in Automation. Who would ahve thought.

But he this is not valid in the third world countries yet, or is it?

Not so long ago this argument of the end game would arise when people debated capitalism vs. communism.

Pseudo-capitalism has since outproduced self-proclaimed communism to an extent that communism has had to adopt some capitalist characteristics to keep pace. I suspect because it has become obvious that there aren't examples of pure capitalism or pure communism, the pro and con arguments are not raised often now.

The argument seemed to come to a head in that:

communism was unlikely to function sufficiently to reach a day when improving efficiency would ever occur to a degree that had much of an effect;

and,

that while increasing efficiency was easy to achieve with capitalism, the result was increasing unemployment, decreasing wages, wider gaps between the shrinking haves and the growing have not, and eventual economic collapse.

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I suspect characteristics resembling those of the former ideals will continue to be incorporated such that government involvement will hamper innovation to such a degree that the decline of the conditions for every not in the very elite will be sufficiently gradual as not to insight revolution, thereby smoothly ushering us to our demise.

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But, I've always been an optimist. It may not turn out so well.

Ever seen the film Wall-E?

Just think - in a hypothetical society where everything is automated, no-one works. So there is no need for money any more, as no-one has any worth. So to talk of an 'economy' is abstruse.

'So to talk of an 'economy' is abstruse.'

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Sure, once the transition has been made.

The possible transitions to such a societal system are not intuitively obvious. The imagined consequences of some attempts at transitions can be disturbing.

This discussion isn't so esoteric nor ancillary as at first blush some might imagine.

True 90+% is not 100%, but the percentage difference is shrinking.To think that anything has reached the pinnacle of improvements is like the man that quit his job at the patent office in the 1800's because he felt there was no future in it."Everything has already been invented that can be invented"

Perhaps there will not be an "economy" as we define it now, but there will always be an exchange of goods or ideas required.With society becoming more and more tied together by devices, and privacy of the individual becoming a quaint memory,eventually everyone may be linked up like one giant organism, like ants or the BORG.They are growing neurons on silicon substrates already,and influencing them with current flow.They have crude mind reading devices that can image what you are thinking in a very primitive way, at present, but you can bet it will get better.

Perhaps ideas themselves will become the currency.

Creativity is usually rewarded in the present,so perhaps also it will be in the future.

We would be totally lost if we could return after a 100 year nap. The language would have evolved into cryptic (to us) strings of acronyms.Just look at texting over the last few years.Kids have shorthand to replace whole phrases.The shorthand will soon become language, a piece at a time.

Language is a living evolving organism and is constantly changing.Hardly anyone alive today could understand "Old English" as spoken in the day. I remember hearing a recording performed by a professor, who claimed to speak it properly,and it was barely intelligible,only a word now and then was recognised.

"I bring the news from "D" street,and the news is not good" ....A quote from a forgotten sci-fi title novel.

If such thing happens then there will be huge unemployment. Highly criminalised society, murders and stealing, mugging of people on the roads.God save us.

Have you not watched the news lately?

There are four reasons to automate a task.

To make it safer, to make it faster, to make it cheaper, to make it possible, or some combination of the four,

A nuclear power station is not just automated to make it safer, without automation is is not possible to handle uranium rods. There is no point in being able to assemble products faster if you cannot sell all the products that you now assemble slowly, and you cannot assemble a sandwich cheaper than doing it by hand.

Automation has it's place and I have built a career on automating people out of jobs (or when that became politically unacceptable, providing people with jobs in support of that automation). It is neither economic nor desirable to automate everything. I might be prepared to let a robot do open heart surgery on me but I would want a qualified doctor to be on hand to take over in the event of complications. I have seen too many software programming cock-ups to risk my life at the hands of programmers. In my spare time I paint and sculpt, creating art for my own satisfaction and enjoyment. A robot my be able to produce comparable results faster and cheaper but they would be a somebody else's art not mine.

In 1983 I was working in a 25 man manufacturing facility in a small town. We had justified the purchase of a CNC machine replacing five labor intense and sometimes dangerous positions. The word got out into the community and there was some outrage about replacing jobs with a 'damn robot'.

Two years later we had doubled to more than 50 employees, we had gained market share and become profitable. It was easy to see that our automation had not eliminated jobs, but actually added them.

Since that time, I have seen this scenario played out time and time again when integrating automation. The simplest justification method for most automation is the decrease of direct labor costs (jobs) but there are always many more benefits that are difficult to quantify like improvements in ergonomics, quality, indirect labor and overall plant efficiency gains. Many times I have seen the company grow their labor force rather than shrink.

I have never seen a totally automated manufacturing plant. Every facility in which I have been involved, requires interaction, oversight and decision making of the 'human element'. I cannot imagine anything being built to replace the versatility, and intelligence of a human to fill all the voids between existing automation components.

100% automation.......... imo, that will never happen unless that is better defined.

What are automated businesses doing. What are the machines making.

An automated society must surely use machines to release humans from routine drudgery able to meet the demands of production without spending much time at work.

In some cases some humans will be released to the extent that they have absolutely nothing to do.

They become redundant in the current world which immediately means no job and hence no income. And no money means no orders. So what will the machines be doing now.

The demand is still there. the same number of people will want the same number of things. All that is missing is money.

The machines will have to invent an automated process of generating and distributing money - at amounts regardless of work done by the recipient - I think it is called dole.

The one person left (me !) to operate the 100% automated society will be quite busy.

I will not have any leisure time to watch watch TV - but not to worry - I will probably have a machine that will watch TV for me.

Oh boy, my favorite !!

How about that then!

Does the machine choose which programme to watch ?

and now a word from our sponser.........

100% automation is a wonderful concept, but my personal belief is that it will never exist.

There are still to many things a machine cannot do, and every machine requires a human to repair it.

So 100% automation is a dream which is still to far away to think about.

I worked at a company where it's client was expanding it cheese processing line. And on our part, unbeknown to me, it was even written in the contract for 100% automation.

Well, it was no where near 100% automated, and the client kept coming back literally bitching about it.

The only thing I had was a scope I did on my part, which I had believed took precedence............. and there was a problem in my scope, due to trying to save money (internally) it was decided by sales and accounting to put in a smaller centrifugal pump to save $15,000.00. This I corrected and he still bitched........until he showed me the contract.

I took over the management of the project did a total analysis on it and no way could 100% automation could be defined.

In the meeting with the client, I scolded sales and accounting about skimping on a crucial item, and the customer I told him that this definition of 100% automation was basically undefined.

There has to be user intervention at critical points. Finally an agreement that was acceptable to both parties.

afterwards, had a long talk with the president of the company that included sales and accounting about items like this.

We aren't in the Industrial Age anymore. We are in the Information/Electronic Age where economies operate differently. There certainly are countries in the world who still operate in the Industrial Age, but not here predominately for a variety of factors.

"Perhaps ideas themselves will become the currency. Creativity is usually rewarded in the present,so perhaps also it will be in the future".

In the past "Ages"; i.e. Stone, Agricultural, Industrial, there were different factors that affected how economies worked, what had value (survival skills, land, equipment/laborers). Today, in the Information/Electronic there is a different asset and that is a community of people who drive much of business, i.e. Amazon, social media sites, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, Apple, etc. Ideas that can be acted upon have value.

There will always be a need for some sorts of labor, service industry, distritution of goods and services produced elsewhere in the world, farming/food production, etc. It's just that the primary job core is not manufacturing anymore in the USA.

People have to approach life differently then as well. The old addage of "get a good education, get a good job at a big company and you'll be set for life" doesn't apply anymore, as a whole. And yet many people still operate that way, they have work challenges and the first thing they do is to think they should go back to school in order to be more marketable. Maybe that's not the proper route to go anymore? Small business, entrepreneurship may be a better way to go.

Hear! Hear! Amen!

In the afterlife maybe?

Certainly not here in this world.

I remember so vividly the "New Age Training" we went to back in the 80's where the philosophy was; "The new factories will have two employees. A man and a dog. The dog's job is to provide security for the factory. The man's job is to feed the dog."

The seeds that were planted then, coupled with all the "outsourcing" done in the quest to gouge everyone and maximize profits are now in full harvest mode with our economy in the cellar and our government on the verge of total collapse.

It occurred to me then as it does today that once we put everyone out of work in order to maximize profits; "Just exactly who is going to be buying the products we produce if nobody has any money?"

Today hardly anyone is willing to pay their fair share of taxes and this coupled with the "taxable" working group decreasing daily in size, the tax burden must increase exponentially on each and every taxpayer is a recipe for economic disaster.

Mr. Romney during the recent presidential election alluded to this increasing issue when he indicated that somewhere in the neighborhood of 40% of the people in our USA is totally supported by tax dollars and in no way can our economy survive the trend.

Boy, did he get "hammered" for stating that fact despite it being true.

Check it out for yourself:

1. Federal employees.

2. State employees.

3. County employees.

4. City employees.

5. Social Security Recipients.

6. Welfare Recipients.

7. Unemployment Benefits Recipients.

8. Federal & State Funded Students.

9. Federal, State, County, & City Jail Inmates.

10. The Massive Bureau of Indian Affairs Benefits Recipients.

11. Specialty assistance programs for illegal "aliens" and political attaches.

If we don't stop being so greedy soon and get people back to work, we soon will not have any hope of recovering our economy nor will we be able to fund the needed income of all the tax dependent people, operation of our streets, highways, schools, government, and other necessary items for maintaining a healthy culture and the American way of life.

If we let this happen the result will no doubt be revolutionary to say the least.

As for me:

I remember getting down on my knees, crying, and kissing American soil when I was 20 years old so overjoyed to finally be home.

I felt then and still do today that I am more than willing to pay my fair share of taxes to keep this country and ouir way of life preserved.

I just pray that we as a country come to our senses and not only get our people back to work but we also institute a flat percentage tax on the gross income of every person, business, and corporation so that the loop holes and ambiguity to cheat on and/or avoid paying the needed taxes required for living in this great county and sustaining our way of life is eliminated.

I apologize to all for the lengthly "venting" but this is dear to my heart as I want my children and grandchildren as well as every existing and all future citizens of this great country to experience the benefits and honor I have as an American citizen and I want that no citizen ever lose sight of what it really means to be an "American".

We have no direction, because we have no competent leader that assumes the responsibility no matter where it originated.

Social Security should not have to be paid by taxes.It was designed to be self supporting by Reagan,and if the plan was properly followed, there would be a surplus in the account today, and far into the future.But just as soon as excess monies started piling up, the government started writing IOU' and withdrawing massive amounts of money to fund special interests.And this thievery crosses party line,both Democrats and Republicans are guilty.

I do not belong to either.

The problem is the IOU's are worthless,not redeemable for anything.so they "Legally" robbed the SS fund,and now they have to pay it out of general fund,and complaining about "entitlements".SS is not an "entitlement"' in the sense that it is being used, it is an obligation of the government to pay back what should not have been stolen in the first place.

Insofar as The bureau of Indian Affairs Recipients, the Europeans almost made the native Indian extinct.They deserve more than they can ever be re-payed.This land was their home,and the cries of "Foul" from other minorities about mistreatment of their ancestors falls on deaf ears in comparison.

Illegal aliens should be treated as they are"ILLEGAL" and deported,but the Democratic party sees a goldmine of future votes,so they will do everything to prevent deportation of any possible votes.

Welfare recipients and unemployment recipients should have to undergo mandatory drug testing to maintain eligibility so that our tax dollars do not end up in South American Drug Cartel pockets.

I agree that most Federal,State,and Local Governments are top-heavy and should be thinned out considerably.

Of course, all of the above is just my opinion, and I could be wrong.

I agree with much of what you say.

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I am a bit puzzled at the Reagan/Social Security reference. While I agree completely that SS current use as a heavily regressive tax, is wrong and should be stopped, you also seem to be suggesting Reagan designed/created Social Security. While Reagan increased payroll taxes for SS and taxed SS benefits (making it both self-supporting, and a cash cow accessible for raiding), SS originated under FDR in the Great Depression.

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As to the Bureau of Indian Affairs: I need to look at the details more closely.

In general though, there are no people on earth with only innocent ancestors. Before Europeans came to the Americas, various groups displaced, enslaved, and/or annihilated other groups, just the same as everywhere else on earth during any century since the advent of agriculture.

At a certain point, institutionalizing differential treatment based on the wrongs of the ancestors of one group upon the ancestors of another group; does more harm in perpetuating non-integration, than any good in making reparations for what might have been.

It makes sense for reparations to be a one time corrective action, so that people can integrate and live as one nation, rather than setting up roles of some people being evil usurpers and the others conquered and maligned based on the likely roles of ancestors of the groups in acts that of one group are now agreed to have been far less than honorable.

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I also think a far more simple solution for not sending money to the cartels is to stop funding price support for their product, by ending policing action against chemicals to which people willingly decide to subject themselves. If people want to drink bleach (it does keep you young....) that should be their business.

And talk about sending jobs overseas.....my guess is that trailer parks owners have a much harder time collecting enough rent to pay their expenses, since the US has pushed so much meth production to Mexico. It isn't like the war on drugs has done anything except expand the market, danger, and profitability of the illicit drug industry. Another fine example of how adept the federal government is at problem solving.

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I heartily accept the motto,-"That government is best which governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,-"That government is best which governs not at all;" and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient. -Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

'...There are many organizations that were founded with good reason and purpose, and contributed a lot to the elimination of prejudice and social injustice. But now, with their original purpose served,they must stir up trouble...'

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That is an important pattern. It would be great if a large section of the population could take notice. The problem is that what you describe above doesn't just occur in the odd aberrant tax funded project or organization; it is the norm. Avoiding fitting that description is a rare feat.

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The problem is that government is trying to do good well reasoned things. And they may for a short period sparkle with success. But those organizations and programs don't disappear as easily as they appeared...and they tend to grow....and begin to feel pressured to demonstrate the effect they are having. If those organizations and projects were based inn the private sector or within industry, there would be no issue of lingering past utility.

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Government shouldn't be trying to do good, well reasoned things. Government should be trying to do what is absolutely necessary, and nothing more. They should be committed to noninterference, noticed only occassionaly hard at work on some absolutely necessary project that couldn't be better handled by anyone else.

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Automated world sounds pretty good if you are an automator.,,

or are we seeing the automators being enslaved by the beneficiaries of automation?

Can an economy dependent on automation afford to reward the automators ( ie the engineers) properly? Could automators be the future power holders?

There's those with and those without the knack. The latter dependent on the former.

Embrace automation! Engineers, you have the whipping hand....use it.

The next time a knackless neighbor asks you for free technical advice ask them to clean your bathroom ......what else can they do in exchange?

Have i just automated a domestic chore?

There is nothing wrong with automation; but once enough humans lose a sense of self worth, we will kill each other on a large scale.

There are plenty of things that I could do to make my life easier, and I intentionally avoid many of them.

I could get a cheap tiller for my garden, but I turn it over with a shovel.

I could buy a log splitter, and although I use a chainsaw, I split my wood with a maul.

There are several other examples. I love technology, and use it to make my life easier; at the same time, I realize that if my life becomes too easy, I'm finished.

Automation is great, but people should never, ever, be enabled to do absolutely nothing but exist. We would do well to remember that, as we watch the cancerous rot of the expanding welfare state.

Those are some good points.

I do think the concern is not so much that most individuals will enlist automatons to perform all the productive work they themselves would have otherwise performed...

and instead the concern is that opportunity for gainful employment will simply not be available, since automatons work longer, harder, faster, better and cheaper.

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...At least that is how I perceive the concern.

That's true. As others have pointed out too, the consequences of massive unemployment will be disastrous.

For glimpse into one of our possible collective futures, a trip to the inner city is all that it takes. Drugs, crime, hopelessness and futility. It doesn't have to be like that.

We will never achieve full automation, and I don't think automation is bad. I think the key, is to instill personal responsibility within the individual, and giving them the freedom to be productive in any avenue they choose.

This would require less government; not more. Humans are a highly creative and adaptive species. Most will find a talent and use it to make money, if given the opportunity. Unfortunately, providing that opportunity, is now portrayed as being cruel and unfeeling. If the eventual downfall comes, I'm sure that automation will be at least partially blamed, but the truth will be, that politicians are actively promoting sloth to garner votes. It's gonna bite us in our collective asses.

I understand what you are saying. I have told people for years "Never put a motor on your rocking chair."

That's right!

A lot of people retire, and die not too much later. They don't die from old age; they die because their minds and bodies atrophy. Same goes for civilizations.

Nobody ever imagined that the Roman Empire would crash on itself...but it did. It wasn't automation that did them in.

It's a damned shame to watch history repeat itself...but it is.

Roman Empire is all around us mate.

It's just changed a bit.

Fine if you are born with a suitable brain in a family social environment that enables you to acquire the knowledge, training and experience to become a doctor.

The comparison of a doctor to a janitor on a lower rate of pay is not where the problem lies, the real gripe is why the CEO of an organisation should be paid megabucks more than the janitor or the doctor, who both no doubt work just as hard as the CEO.

the real gripe is why the CEO of an organisation should be paid megabucks more than the janitor or the doctor, who both no doubt work just as hard as the CEO.

You have no real tangibilities to your hypothesis to defend on your part with it also being to simplistic.

Even though I would agree with large bonus's and exuberant salaries CEO's may have been getting for basically dismantling the company.

There is no quantitative measurment that you have given.

An example

• Define Hard Work
• Define Risk
• Define Training (this can get into sub items such as structured and un structured)
• Define Experiences both tangible and non tangible

This is just to start with.

Otherwise it just without a lack of a better word .............. bitching

You need to define 'bitching'.

The last time I recall a discussion like this was when remuneration consultants gave amumnition to executives who were looking for reasons to justify creaming megabucks off the profits - or more correctly - the executives in Government departments dipping into the public purse - where profit and efficiency are unknown concepts

Since I have a lack of words today for the definition, if it'll help IMO, I'll use an example instead.

Again, nothing quanitive.....

Stop drinking the socialist Kool-aid.

I have no qualms with the salaries of CEOs, nor is it any of my business. I do have a problem with the behavior of some of those CEOs, and that's where government has dropped the ball and failed us. Rather than doing their jobs, they have chosen to partner with private enterprise in an unscrupulous way.

For your analogy to hold water, then all people that make megabucks for less work than others, should be punished; that would include all television and movie actors, all popular musical acts, everybody that wins the lottery, everybody that inherits a large sum of money from a deceased relative....the list goes on.

Google Dr Ben Carson, and tell him that's it's impossible to make it without being born into it.

In reply to Kramarat and Phoenix119 in particular re their comments on my views of the unjustifiable megabucks I think are creamed off the profits of the efforts others who work just as hard for as many hours, doesn't need justifying or quantifying by me because the people involved (the 'low pay' victims) have their own definitions that drive their decision making.

I am not trying to convert anybody, so you can dismiss my opinions as b****ing or socialist if you like, it doesn't matter, but the basis of my remarks go back the the '100% automation' concept that if achieved would result, in the current capitalist/politico society, in people losing their jobs - and even bigger megabucks for the bosses.

It will never be allowed to happen. The have-not's will revolt unless new ways of matching reward to effort can be found.

That effectively means Phoenix911, the Guru, instead of dismissing my comments as b****ing, should provide the definitions in post 33 - ones that could feed, clothe, house and entertain the masses in the new 100% automated world.

It's interesting, when you talk about the have and the have nots, and I'll include the ones that had everything and lost it, only to not only work at its that looked more like a struggle, to either regain or achieved the level that is satisfactory. Actually has a very different opinion than yours.

And when it comes to the matter of working hard and not achieving what you or many like you feel is not at the level you should be at. That is not a victim. Because there is a number of factors that are involved, again some examples:

- working smarter, not harder

- setting your goals higher than the norm, I.e. goals you are not sure you can make or goals that you know you can make, (the later of which is not really a goal at all, but nothing more than just an exercise)

- recognizing and seizing an opportunity where others fail to see.

- and yes, luck, where you are the right person, in the right place, at the right time when needed

These are just a few that can separate one from the crowd

And like my opinions, I look at your post as just that.... Opinions, nothing more.

Also, your understanding of this topic and even the topic we strayed on is IMO the same as your understanding of the label of guru here.

I'm really starting to hate the word "victims".

People fail to recognize that automation makes things affordable for everyone. It boggles my mind how cheap everything is.

Think about it...

Suppose I want to make myself a delicious steak dinner, with all the timmings. I can pull it off for about $10.

That $10 pays:

The guy that raised the cow from birth.

The guy that slaughtered the cow.

The guy that raised the feed for the cow.

The people that transported the cow and the beef from one place to another, eventually delivering to the store up the street from me.

The butcher that cut me off a nice steak and packaged it.

The grocer that maintains a refrigerated space to keep my steak fresh.

And I'm not done: Go through the same list for my baked potato and salad. Not bad for 10 bucks, now is it? The list isn't even complete...somebody had to build the trucks to get my steak to me, and somebody else had to get oil out of the ground and process it into fuel to run the trucks.

Sure people are getting rich, but they are getting rich from getting a few pennies a day from millions of people, not by creating victims.

As to your request on how " ones that could feed, clothe, house and entertain the masses in the new 100% automated world."

Its not hard to find data on this, maybe thats what you should try, to at the very least defend your position.

This link gives more insight with people in the field on how this would work. And it'll give some statistics based on measurements to reinforce that.

Now, to be proactive, some people with the victimized attitude may object with, "But, those jobs will go to China and still claim to be victims".

When that is the case, that I cannot defend it, they are victims, because they chose to be victims.

An excerpt from Seth Warnk controls technician at Nammo Talley Inc.:

" Automation creates more jobs that are technical in nature instead of a person loading parts all day,"

Now with this said, with your position. Your call someone in to repair your machine, (2) technicians are available. Which each works hard and each charges $150.00/hour service charge, but:

• One is very knowledgeable and the second not.
• One is very efficient and the second is not
• One can get the machine running very quickly, the second stumbles through it and has no idea when he can finish.

Now since each is paid the same, My choice is, I want the one that can do the job. Not the second one who is seemingly and justly incompetent.

^{btw $150.00/hour can be more or less}.

Now you can distract more by claiming that both will only see a portion of this $150.00, if you dare.

About 30 years or so ago, the government saw the future problems of full automation, and offered companies tax incentives to allow the employees to buy the company.It was called,I believe, ESOP, Employee Stock Option Plan.

One such company that took advantage of that was Sullair Compressors.

If all companies were owned by the employees, the problem of full automation would basically go away.As long as the widgets,etc., were made and sold, everyone would have an income,with which to purchase widgets,gidgets,trinkets,gadgets,food,clothing, etc.

This would require a totally different type of management and government than is available at present.

Consider this scenario, that happened one day while I was filling up my car with gas.A couple of state workers,towing a trailer were stopped beside the street,and one of them was digging a hole in the shoulder of the road.

The second worker went behind him and filled in the hole.When I left, I stopped and asked what they were doing.

"Well, there are usually 3 men on this crew.I dig the hole, Fred puts the tree in the hole, and Mack fills up the hole.Fred is out sick today, but that doesn't mean we can't work"

So what was accomplished by these 2 men?They were making a living.Producing nothing, but earning their pay.The government could create millions of jobs using this method.Work for the sake of work.For all intents and purposes, they could be sitting behind a desk moving icons around and getting paid the same.Fred could even move some tree icons into the hole.

There is no intrinsic value of putting the trees in the hole.What if they were plastic trees instead of real ones? Merely aesthetics.Perhaps arranging icons in a certain sequence could become a days work for someone, as valuable as trying to decipher the noise from space looking for artificial intelligence.

If all physical needs are provided automatically, then "make work" would be required to generate income.Economy is such an elusive thing to analyse.

If you lose $50,you will fret over it.If you pay $50 to have your lawn mowed, it is soon forgotten.You are still $50 short.Someone finds the $50 you lost and spends it, and it goes into the economy just like the money you paid for mowing your grass.

A pseudo-economy would work just as well by simply assigning value to certain tasks that could be performed mentally,once the brain interface is totally enabled.

Put in your 40 hours of icon arrangement ,or other assignment of pseudo-work,then you are free to pursue your other interests.Just like the state workers....

Think about it.....

Just to add to your scenario...

Most people are not content with "make work", therefore, it would require that the unions be expanded to include everyone, to complete the conditioning. From there, everyone would be paying dues to insure that we keep people in power, that promise to create more "make work".

The work could be either physical or mental, as long as everyone was logging in 40 hours per week. Within a few short years, we could catch up to the superpower we call North Korea.

Nothing is mention of the quality of the 40 hours one is putting in, and that just putting in the time is in itself considered 'hard work'.

And to level the playing field, that same person that is label a hard worker is put alongside some one that not only puts in their 40 hour week, but the performance is also superior.

What is lost, here is actually a legal precedence of which I have challenged people who just put the time in and doesn't perform. And that precedence is 'you produced, but you did not perform'.

I started a thread on one of my experiences here: At Least Have Some Experience

In other words I'll use a company as an example:

"A company makes coffee makers, it can produce 1,000 coffee makers a day (Produce). but only 10% (100 coffee makers) actually work (Perform), so 90% does not perform (900 coffee makers)."

But because that company produce 1,000 coffee makers, of which 900 did not perform, I feel that that company should not get paid for producing 1,000 coffee makers, but only gets paid for 100 coffee makers that actually work.

From an exchange I had on earlier posts here, one needs competition, and with a job well done, one is given a reward, and that reward is success. And that success can have different values for recognition, "a promotion", "a raise", "certain benefits".

But instead, and I'm going to oversimplify things, there are people that believe that because this one person is good at its job, that everyone should be treated the same and that the 'High Achiever' should not be singled out and rewarded, but instead, The 'High Achiever' as well as Everyone else should be given a green participation ribbon, as not to 'victimize' anyone.

And what gets lost here, individual ambition and initiative.

And in Conclusion, 'You not only have to produce, You have to perform also'.

And having it any other way, you invite incompetence, and an example is from my link earlier on this thread.

Exactly!

The desire to "compete" is built into human nature. Some people want that changed; and they are slowly succeeding.

Maybe this shouldn't be surprising. Perhaps debasing of work is a natural consequence of debasing of currency.

I'm not endorsing half-assedness in anything you do, whether it is paid or not.

I'm just suggesting perhaps it might be a natural consequence on the average of forcing transactions to be conducted in a currency being continually debased (and probably mainly supported by large, costly and possibly illegal manipulation of several commodity derivatives).

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You get what you pay for....or you pay for what you get.

Well, I think that everything is relative, and that, (free market), systems tend to become self correcting; not to say that corrections will be painless.

The more/longer government screws with things and spends money trying to force fixes that are based in fallacy, the more the eventual corrections are going to hurt.

We have a quasi-free market right now. I think our current system still has some self correcting reactivity. I think if it were more free, it would self correct more efficiently with less disruption.

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I don't actually believe a completely free market would be the best scenario, but we've got a very long way to go before that is a danger.

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The more free the market is from artificial distortions, the quicker and less severe the corrections.

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There is, I believe, a point at which a market becomes so far from being 'free' that market reactions can no longer safely be assumed to correct or even improve a situation over any reasonable amount of time.

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The monetary system is such a fundamentally important part of a free market, it doesn't seem far fetched to think major distortion in the money supply represents a systemic risk to the very survival of the system.

Screwing with the monetary system, isn't merely obfuscating (and thereby calling into question, once the obfuscation is generally realized) the value of a specific business, segment or investment type.

Screwing with the monetary system obfuscates the value and proper function of the entire process. The correction for that isn't necessarily limited to situations where the current system continues with corrected valuations going forward.

I would call it a pseudo-free market. Nothing is real, and nobody knows what to do or what's coming next. The stock market is running on, (fake), federal reserve money that's being laundered through the big banks.

This is all relatively new territory, and the crash is going to suck.

We all grew up in the era when the stock market invested in companies and their returns were derived from the profits those companies made. Reinvesting some of that money into improve production made sense because it protected the company share values against general inflation in the rest of the economy. More importantly it worked. There were a few rogue traders so we had scandals like the south sea bubble and the tulip boom, but in general it was self regulating.

Then in the late 70's deregulation changed the market. In order for stockbrokers to make a profit the share values have to be volatile. Heaps more money can be made by buying and selling than was made previously by distributed dividend. Create a rumour to inflate or deflate the price of a share and because you know the rumour before everybody else you can make a killing. A whole raft of techniques to make easy money grew up, shorting stock, hedge funds, derivatives, junk bonds, non of which depended on the health of the productive companies. The market finally collapsed when convinced by there own infallibility the bankers started buying back their own repackaged sub-prime mortgages.

Banking has always been low risk enterprise. Bankers traditionally take security on loans and only loan to those who can repay. So how did sub-primes happen? It wasn't the bankers who made the initial loans, it was middle men who immediately sold on the loan. Realising that they had bought a pup the buyers repackaged the loans, got a corrupt third party to list it as AAA and sold it on again, this time to the banks. Note that in theory the bankers are still not taking a risk because what they are buying is AAA. Of course everybody in the industry knew the real score but they were all making pots of money and the culture since deregulation had changed so making money was the prime objective, not serving the productive companies.

So how do we get out of the mess, or even survive if it goes on for much longer? I think that the answer is to separate profits made from dividends from profits made from share deals, and tax the latter punitively. The EU has proposed a trading tax that is a step in the right direction. It is rigorously opposed by the UK who's economy would be adversely affected far more than any other EU nation. The UK government argues that trading would just move elsewhere so losing revenue without solving the problem. This argument has some merit, so I would propose that a trading tax be introduced, at comparable rates by every one of the G20 trading nations. Together they have enough clout to stop nations outside the G20 from cashing in on any relocation of stock trading. To avoid this being just another way for cash strapped governments to raise revenue, it should be agreed that other taxes be reduced so that the overall effect is neutral. The individual nations would be free to decide how this redistribution takes place, but in the UK for instance I would like to see more put into developing a coherent industrial strategy.

For a thread on 100% automation this has drifted a long way off topic, so to compensate I will rant against automated stock trading that tracks stock prices and sells without human intervention if the price falls below a pre-set threshold. Automated stock trading is the prime existing example of why 100% automating is not desirable.

To make a very, very long story, short; things began to go to hell when the government went from being a watchdog over the free market, (that was charged with plucking the bad apples from the tree), to becoming a player with the power to manipulate outcomes. Despite their possible good intentions, they have failed.

The reason we see continued stagnation, is because the government has become the biggest bad apple in the game, and there is nobody around to get them out of it. As long as that is the case, we will continue our path of spiraling decline.

If the free market were a living system, we could say that it has cancer. It remains to be seen whether it's terminal. I hope not, but I'm not real confident at this point.

'...The market finally collapsed when convinced by there own infallibility the bankers started buying back their own repackaged sub-prime mortgages.

Banking has always been low risk enterprise. Bankers traditionally take security on loans and only loan to those who can repay. So how did sub-primes happen? It wasn't the bankers who made the initial loans, it was middle men who immediately sold on the loan. Realising that they had bought a pup the buyers repackaged the loans, got a corrupt third party to list it as AAA and sold it on again, this time to the banks. Note that in theory the bankers are still not taking a risk because what they are buying is AAA. Of course everybody in the industry knew the real score but they were all making pots of money and the culture since deregulation had changed so making money was the prime objective, not serving the productive companies......'

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Wrong. Pure fantasy.

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I realize this is similar to the answer many people would provide IF PRESSED to explain what happened. There has been a lot of misinformation out there and a lot of oversimplification of a complicated subject. That many people still don't have a good understand of what happened, is regrettable, but not that dangerous, so long as they realize the weakness in their understanding.

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HOWEVER,

Coming across this volunteered 'explanation' of events as an indictment of deregulation and as a prelude to suggestions of what our best future course of action would be is disheartening and frankly a bit frightening. I always want to hold onto the idea that if people don't understand something well, that they won't create some fictional explanation unprovoked, and that the certainly wouldn't use this fiction to try to persuade others to a course of action, knowing it isn't grounded in fact....doesn't seem like that is often (if ever) the case.

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Let's dispel this line by line, but for clarity let's leave the very first sentence highlighted for last, and instead begin with:

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'..Banking has always been low risk enterprise. Bankers traditionally take security on loans and only loan to those who can repay.....'

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'Low risk' is relative, subjective, and adds nothing to this discussion.

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While bankers have traditionally made loans backed by hard collateral, bankers have also traditionally made loans that are not backed by hard collateral. Think; signature loans, overdraft coverage, credit cards, inventory loans, and account receivable loans.

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The idea that bankers traditionally only made loans to those who would be able to repay bestow prescience on bankers. No one knows absolutely if someone will be able to pay, the best judgement possible is that someone is very likely to have to means and the willingness to pay throughout the payback period.

It is misleading to suggest that bankers have only loaned money to those who would repay....if that were the case, why bother with the collateral?

Further evidence is available looking not too far back when home mortgages maxed at 50%. The reliance on credit and character (if any reliance thereon) paled in comparison to the reliance on collateral, in those days.

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'....So how did sub-primes happen? It wasn't the bankers who made the initial loans, it was middle men who immediately sold on the loan.....'

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So you are suggesting that middle men, with no backing or guidelines to meet, started lending out the substantial sums involved in home loans, just on the chance they would be able to sucker a banker into buying the loans? Really? That really seams even remotely likely to be what occurred?

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Subprime didn't start with someone making crappy loans and then bankers being so stupid as to fail to properly underwrite the seasoned loan prior to purchase.

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Hard money loans have been around for a long time. There are good records of hard money mortgages on houses going back to at least the 1950s but they existed long before that.

Hard money loans are typically high interest 1st position loans with a max loan to value of around 65%. The banks and individuals who made these loans typically held the loans either receiving the full repayment with interest or the property.

Hard money loans are relatively short term, and are very individualistic, so they don't lend themselves well to being sold. As such records are not easily available.

Finance companies and finance operations within banks made full fledged 'subprime' loans and have also been around for a long time. The records of loans really become accessible in the 1990's when finance companies started going to the bond markets for funding. Many of the finance companies were later bought by banks who wanted in on the market.

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So middle men didn't conjure Subprime loans on a whim. And subprime did not originate from the negligence of a banker who thought that they were buying a conforming loan.

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'....Realising that they had bought a pup the buyers repackaged the loans, got a corrupt third party to list it as AAA and sold it on again, this time to the banks. Note that in theory the bankers are still not taking a risk because what they are buying is AAA......'

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No, no, no. How will we have a chance of avoiding similar mistakes in the future if the past is being so severely distorted (and for what purpose, to malign 'deregulation'? uhg!) .

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Look. You are confusing fraud and securitization. This is another example of the process of securitization being wrongly vilified. Maybe I can explain, to assist anyone who cares to read this far.

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Consider two pools of loans: One of conforming A mortgages and the other of B grade mortgages.

The A pool is $100M worth of loans between $100K and $280K ($200k avg)with max LTV after backing out mortgage insurance coverage of 80%, with minimum down payment of 5%, and an average LTV of 75% all on 30 year fixed term at 5% seasoned 3 months.

Models reflect expected foreclosure rate of 0.5% per year of remaining mortgages. Models further reflect most severe expected downturn would result in foreclosure rate of no more than 2% per year of remaining mortgages. Expected pool reduction to refinance 1% to 12% per year.

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The B pool is $100M worth of loans between $80K and $400K ($150K avg)with max LTV of 85%, with minimum down payment of 10%, and an average LTV of 65% all on 30 year fixed term at 7% seasoned 3 months.

Models reflect expected foreclosure rate of 5% per year of remaining mortgages. Models further reflect most severe expected downturn would result in foreclosure rate of no more than 15% per year of remaining mortgages. Expected pool reduction to refinance 10% to 40% per year.

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Now imagine I go to the bond market with the A pool. Do you think I will get AAA rates for the who pool? Of course not. We already expect at least 1/2 percent to be in foreclosure. If things turn sour then even more. Another small portion will be removed due to refinance. Leave some room for oddities and mishaps. Really we can probably only write about 80% as AAA, 10% as AA, 5% as A and the remainder as an array of less than A grade paper.

But you can't pick which ones will default prior, you only know roughly what portion, so the pool gets divided by revenue in the door. 1st 80% goes to AAA payments with overage setting up a reserve. the same thing on up the line for each progressive grade.

That in essence is a simplified version of securitization. Now that insurers and investors can select agreed risks and commiserate returns, the cost of funding is dramatically reduced. Just as important, everything is kept in check because each portion has to have a knowledgeable willing buyer for it to be repeatable.

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So what differs when that is done for the 'B' pool?

Since the default and foreclosure rates can be much higher, the amount that can be AAA is lower. This is offset by somewhat by higher interest rates and lower LTV. Probably around 60% of the pool can be funded with AAA paper. 10% with AA. 10% with A.

Of the remaining 20%, 15% can be funded using pools rated B through D by a paid reviewing credit agency, as such reinsurance would be available.

The last 5% is unrated/unrateable. This portion if sold commands very high rates of return.

This whole this was kept in check because every portion needed a knowledgeable willing buyer to make the process repeatable.

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So the thing that obviously kept subprime in check was funding that last 5%. As long as that safety was there , thing went along smoothly.

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And then some guys got a 'bright' idea. What if we just treat the last 5% from a bunch of different securitization pools like a group of subprime loans. Just securitize them together and we can sell 1/2 the pool as AAA then the remainer is such high yield, buyers will be breaking down the doors. The CDO (Collateralized Debt Obligation) was born

How did anyone ever fall for that? Presentation was everything. They used the unrated portions from very different types of pools. Some from credit cards along with autos, along with mortgages along with accounts receivables. And I have to think there was some collusion with the ratings guys.... after all it was supposed to be their area of expertise. A big part of it was no body want to appear as if they didn't get it.

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'..Of course everybody in the industry knew the real score but they were all making pots of money and the culture since deregulation had changed so making money was the prime objective, not serving the productive companies......'...'

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This is the one part of this fairy tail that has an element of truth.....

While not everyone =knew what was going on, and a lot of people thought it was crazy ('I wouldn't put my money into this scheme' oft heard), how exactly would you expect almost all people to react if their company was asking them to do something and that something was making them and their colleagues a lot of money, while making the customers happy all the while?

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Moreover, what exactly is the primary goal of business in this day and age?

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'......The market finally collapsed when convinced by there own infallibility the bankers started buying back their own repackaged sub-prime mortgages. ....'

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The collapse wasn't triggered by bankers buying securitized subprime mortgages. The collapse occurred when one refused to buy a pool. Then another pool. Then a few more. Then the other buyers took notice and everyone stopped buying.

Mortgages stopped.

Housing stopped.

Overnight markets stopped.

For a day, food and gasoline sat unmoved by transport. That was the brink. You would likely have seen cannibalism had food and gasoline transport been disrupted to large cities for longer than about 2 weeks.

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The worst sin wasn't even the guys making CDOs. The worst sin is that the banks and rating agencies responsible were ushered with unlimited funds into the new paradigm in their same positions. That isn't deregulation. It is regulation at its worst!

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