Ignoramus10488 wrote:

On 2010-04-23, Winston wrote:
Here is the deal for folks who still cling to that belief:
In a Republican administration, the poor are prevented from becoming
poorer until after the rich become richer.
In a Democratic administration, the rich are forced to become richer
before the poor are permitted to become poorer.

My own theory in the widening income gap between well paid people and
badly paid people is very simple. It is not very much about politics
and mostly about economics, IQs and productivity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/29tax.html

The economics of this is that work contributions of not so
intelligent, or unqualified, people are replaced by computers. The
easiest example, besides CNC manufacturing, is to see how store
cashiers are being replaced by automatic checkouts. Same applies to
very many other professions.

As computers become smarter, more and more people are being pushed out
of the economic bandwagon and fall on the fringes. They simply cannot
contribute much that is within their abilities.

This is significantly different from the past industrial revolutions,
where people replaced by machines simlpy learned to operate such
machines and overall, produced more. Now, there essentially is a
lesser need to have anyone operate any machines, as computers do it
better.

I do not know what the future holds, and possibly, we will stumble on
the answer on what to do with such displaced people, and the society
will continue happily employing them for something useful. Possibly,
we will be forced to improve our education system, with some minor
gains due to that.

It is also possible that we will not stumble on any such solution and
more and more people will be pushed to the fringe, as computers can
substitute for a greater percentage of population every year. The
bleak social consequences will be easy to imagine.

I find this trend to be very disturbing, as eventually almost everyone
will be eventually displaced from productive activity. Remember that
even now, world chess champions barely win chess matches against
computers. For more food for thought, read

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

Tax policy or trade policy cannot do much to stop this essentially
technological, microeconomic development. Social policy may make the
fate of displaced workers a bit better, and in the meantime an
economic solution may be found.

The individual answer to this is that to be successful, it is
important for young people who are not wealthy, to become
sophisticated, focused and highly educated individuals. This is,
clearly, not feasible for everyone, but it is important to at least
try.

I do think that this issue will be a fundamental source of instability
for decades to come.

i

Subsistence farming - it's the future. Look at Zimbabwe's total collapse
over just a few years...