The windows for poverty reduction will shrink dramatically, as robots and automation help bring back to developed countries the jobs lost to poorer ones.

Sir, Ben Bland writes: “Automation in Bangladesh may not make sense because you still have to ship but, if you make in the US, it makes more sense because there’s no [import] duty, no shipping, you’re closer to the customer and there are shorter lead times,” said Mr Rajan. “March of the robots stalls as clothes maker Crystal backs human workers” January 2.

What can I say? Should those robots working in the US share a moment of silence for those poor Bangladesh workers they will be substituting for?

https://perkurowski.blogspot.ca/2017/02/here-some-disorderly-lose-cannon.html

@PerKurowski

Do we want to settle for working or middle class robots? I want the 1% top ones to work for my grandchildren

Sir, Sarah O’Connor while discussing the issue of jobs, for humans or robots, sensibly concludes that it is not “the routine jobs” taken over by robots that should bother us but “the basic stuff — homes, security, prospects — that we lost along the way” “The middle class is not shrinking as much as it thinks” July 11.

O’Connor brings up an interview from a 1974 book “Working” written by social historian Studs Terkel. In it a steelworker says: “I want my kid to be an effete snob . . . If you can’t improve yourself, you improve your posterity. Otherwise life isn’t worth nothing.”

I sure agree with this steelworker’s general concept, but, if my grandchildren must turn into effete snobs, I hope it is not because they have been replaced by some low or middle class robots, but by the 1% absolutely best ones… or the smartest ever artificial intelligence.

Sir, it should be clear that the better the robots that work for us the more they could produce for us. The marginal contribution of robots that substitutes for bank tellers must surely be less than that of robots that substitutes for bank CEOs.

Just as an example, let us suppose current bank regulations had been carried out not by Basel Committee technocrats, but by some smart artificial intelligence. Then the 2008 crisis and the ensuing slow growth would never have happened. Mr. AI would of course first have looked at what causes major bank crisis and so determine that excessive exposures to something ex ante perceived as risky, never ever did. He would also have understood that allowing banks to multiply with different leverages the net risk adjusted margins, would completely distort the allocation of bank credit to the real economy.

So what can we do? I would say first to make sure to keep the competitive pressure up on robot manufacturers. If we increase minimum wages for humans and do not begin taxing what the robots produce, we will not get the best robots we want.

An updated Chinese curse would be: “I wish your grandchildren live attended by 3rd class robots and dumb artificial intelligence.” And Sir, I would hate for that to happen to my grandchildren, because of something that I did or did not do.

Of course then we would come to the very delicate issue of how do we redistribute robot and automation productivity to humans. That is going to be awfully contentious. The only thing that occurs to me, before social cohesion breaks down, is to being by trying out a universal basic income.

That UBI should start out low and be very carefully designed. That is so because an UBI would become de-facto the robot that substitutes for the current redistribution profiteers, and so these would love to see it fail.

@PerKurowski

Regulatory risk aversion exposes our Western civilization to the risk of a “Mom, dad, you move down to the basement!”

Claire Jones writes on Alexandru saying: “Out of every 10 of my friends, only one works. It’s not a good situation for my generation,” Alex says. He and many of his friends still live at home with their parents. “When I talk to them about the past it sounds better. They all had a job and the opportunity to have a family.” “Temporary fortunes” July 6.

And Ms Bellieni “lives with her young child and husband, who also does many temporary jobs, in a property that belongs to his parents. “Otherwise we couldn’t make it”

Banks are allowed to hold much less capital when financing houses than when financing SMEs and entrepreneurs, as regulators think the former is much safer for the bank than the latter. As a result banks can earn much higher risk adjusted returns on their equity financing houses than financing “the risky”.

But since SMEs and entrepreneurs are job creators par excellence, could these regulations create an excess of basements in which the unemployed or underemployed young can live with their parents, and a substantial lack of jobs?

Mario Draghi, the Chair of the Financial Stability Board and his ECB officials clearly do not see this as a problem, hey they might not even see it as a distortion. That could be since like overly worried nannies they are totally focused on avoiding bank crises, and do not care one iota about how banks do their job in the in-betweens.

Sir, the younger generations, squeezed by this anti Western civilization value of risk aversion, and an increased loss of jobs to robots and automation, could at some point become sufficiently enraged so as to say… “Mom and dad, you move down to the basement, it is our turn to live upstairs!”

Note: Not the first time: 2009: "Please free us from imprudent risk-aversion and give us some prudent risk-taking"

@PerKurowski

What’s wrong with having the best robots work for you, if you know how to tax them correctly?

Sir, Gillian Tett writes: “Robots will be the real winners if US president goes ahead with curbs on steel imports” June 30. Of course! As I wrote to her and you in January “does Ms. Tett really need researchers from McKinsey to wake her up on what robots or automation could signify to jobs in general… is this really new news?”

And with respect to Trump’s announcement on tariffs, in January I tweeted “Beware robot manufacturers might lobby President Trump for higher tariffs and minimum wages” and linked there to a letter to you titled “The real winners of President Trump’s animosity towards cars built in Mexico could be robot manufacturers”

But, on the other hand, what’s wrong with having the best robots working for you, taxing these, and paying out a universal basic income to all? Because what we do need though, in time, before social cohesion breaks down, are some worthy and decent unemployments.

Now, if end up with 3rd class robots and dumb artificial intelligence doing most work, then we would really be in deep shit.

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2017/02/here-some-disorderly-lose-cannon.html

PS. Would the recent US election have taken the same route if that “fascinating recent paper by economists Daron Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo shows, American industry has been replacing workers with robots on a startling scale in recent years, particularly in sectors such as car manufacturing” had appeared in 2016 or earlier instead of in March 2017.

PS. Sir, do you really think you are behaving appropriately shutting me up, just because you have to be careful with some big-weak-egos of some prima donnas?

@PerKurowski

Nations need unions that represent the unemployed and to get a small universal basic income going, before it's too late

Sir, Anne-Sylvaine Chassany, interviewing Laurent Berger writes: “The leader of France’s largest trade union has warned Emmanuel Macron not to rush labour market reforms as the country’s new president kick-starts negotiations over a bill seen as crucial to revamping the eurozone’s second-biggest economy.The warning is a reminder of the labour relations minefield awaiting the pro-business president” “Macron warned by union leader not to rush reform” May 24.

That evidences how much France and all other nations also need unions that represent the unemployed, in order to create some equilibrium among the forces that influence labor politics.

And of course, setting up a universal basic income system, starting it with a small amount, in France perhaps €150 per month, would also begin to open up the roads to that new society in which robots and automation seem to create structural unemployment.

As I have opined since some years we do need decent and worthy unemployments... before its too late.

http://myubi.blogspot.com/2017/01/my-universal-basic-income.html

@PerKurowski

Our societal radar does not record sufficiently many crucial problems and less do we discuss their possible solutions

Sir, Gillian Tett refers to JD Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” April 28.

The author, having faced “a family and culture in crisis” and in order to “combat a culture of instability, irresponsibility, anger and pessimism, made worse by opioid addiction’ suggests, besides the reintroduction of [some] military service, giving extended family members easier adoption rights over troubled children, enabling people receiving housing vouchers to move beyond poverty-stricken ghettos, and, most crucially, encouraging business to work with schools and community colleges to reshape education for teenagers, with more mentoring and apprenticeships.”

Ms. Tett concludes, “These are profoundly sensible steps. But they are also notably not measures that are getting much attention from Trump, let alone from the Democrats. Therein lies the tragedy of America today.”

Absolutely, it is a tragedy, but not only of America. Too much is not recorded timely by our social radars, or if identified then becomes horribly distorted, most often by those who want to profit, monetary or political, from the solutions.

For example: The world is facing structural unemployment, among other by robots and automation becoming more and more efficient. But was that talked about during the last election? No! It was not as politically juicy as going after, or defending, immigrants. If it had been discussed the Mexican wall could have been a non-issue.

In such a jobless world, in order to remain viable societies, we would have to create decent and worthy unemployments, which would probably have to include some sort of universal basic income? But was that talked about during the last election? No!

Also, for our economies to be able to move forward we have to stop current insanely risk adverse bank regulations, that refinances up to the tilt the safer present and past, while refusing financing the riskier future. Is that distortion discussed? No way Jose! If you do they might not invite you to Davos.

Instead populists agitate for instance with realities such as some few billionaires holding more wealth than half of the world’s population…while conveniently ignoring how un-transferrable such wealth really is… or scream about all the “cash stashed away” as if that cash was cash.

To have a chance to leave something reasonably workable to our grandchildren, we need to dramatically realign many incentives and fight those who are marketing solutions only to profit on these. In that respect here follows some of my wishes:

That we are able to keep the fiscal income lean since that is the only way to guarantee the fiscal spending does not get mean.

That we fight tooth and nail against all redistribution profiteers. By for instance creating carbon taxes that helps to save the environment, but that have all its revenues shared directly, equally, among citizens.

That we develop guidelines that help us classify credits, and as a consequence debts, into legitimate or odious.

That we make the pension plans of academics of the universities entirely contingent on how it goes for their students. As a minimum their pension funds should hold all the education loans that were given out in order to pay their salaries.

And of course, please, we must get rid of the so useless and so dangerous risk weighted capital requirements for banks.

@PerKurowski

World Bank: How can we create decent and worthy unemployments to help face a worldwide structural lack of jobs?

Sir, Kristalina Georgieva, writes about the needs for jobs, the difficulties involved with creating these jobs, everywhere, and of how the World Bank is trying to help. “Job insecurity is a fact of life for young people” April 22.

That is all very commendable but what I truly miss, for instance during the 2017 Spring Meetings of the World Bank and IMF, is a discussion, long overdue, about what to do if sufficient jobs are nowhere to be found.

The very real possibility of hundred of millions of young people soon facing the prospects of a lifelong lack of employment, perhaps only eased by some few temporary gigs, is a monstrous social challenge, that must be tackled in time.

For instance if in order to create jobs, we invest so much that there is little left over for taking care of if we fail to do so, then perhaps our problems could compound.

And I am of course not talking about the normal set of social safety nets to take care of a temporary lack of jobs, but of much more fundamental measures… like perhaps the need of a well funded universal basic income paid out to all.

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2012/04/we-need-worthy-and-decent-unemployments.html

Education is of utmost importance for creating jobs, but business as usual will not suffice. For instance some of the remuneration of teachers and professors need to be contingent on how it goes for the students. The current way of loading up university students with debt, that has to be repaid no matter what, basically in order to pay professors great salaries up front, smells a lot like a scam… or like bankers’ bonuses based on short-term results.

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2007/01/should-not-higher-education-be-more-of.html

PS. Had the issue of how robots and automation is impacting the job market been raised earlier, we would perhaps not have to be listening to useless Wall construction proposals.

http://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2017/02/here-some-disorderly-lose-cannon.html

@PerKurowski

Are we better off with robots able to compete with berry pickers than with those able to compete with CEOs?

Sir, Lawrence Summers hits out at the possibility of taxing robots and writes: “Surely it would be better for society to instead enjoy the extra output and establish suitable taxes and transfers to protect displaced workers? It is hard to see why shrinking the pie, rather than enlarging it as much as possible and then redistributing, is the right way forward.”, “Leave robots tax-free to assemble a profitable future” March 6.

Right on... BUT! On the first: why should “less-fortunate workers” be displaced only because they are burdened with for instance payroll taxes or minimum wages, while robots are not, and so that their owner/bosses can earn more?

On the second: why should we have those robots that compete at the lower end of the labor market, be the main pie enlargers? If robots were taxed, then they would have to be much more efficient, and we would perhaps have a better chance of getting the 1st class robots we really want our grandchildren to have at their disposal.

I mean does Professor Summers really feel that the economy has been enlarged when, instead of being able to exchange some words at the supermarket with a human cashier, we have to settle with an automated cashier giving us instructions with an automated voice, and turning us into their submissive servants?

PS. Bill Gates, who is far from being the first to speak about taxing robots, wants us to use those revenues to enlarge the franchise value of the redistribution profiteers. Other of us want to use these instead to partially fund a Universal Basic Income, which could be part of the tools needed to create decent and worthy conditions, for all those unemployments robots and automation cause. But, last time I read it, Professor Summers was on the side of those considering we cannot afford a UBI plan.

PS. When Professor Summers writes, “Why pick on robots?” I am sure he knows we are not only picking on robots but on any artificial substitute for humans efforts that has been inhumanly favored.

PS. Are American workers really competing against Chinese and Mexican workers, or against American, Chinese and Mexican robots?

@PerKurowski

Why has the world not been duly informed about the impact on jobs of robots and dumb bank regulations?

Sir, I refer to your “incisive new global business columnist” Rana Foroohar writing, from a local perspective, that “Trump’s trade policies won’t help my town” March 6.

Let me for the umpteenth time comment on two issues 

Foroohar writes: “small and medium-sized businesses create about 60 per cent of jobs in America.” And it is precisely to “risky” SMEs that bank regulators have assigned among the largest risk-weights; which mean banks need to hold the most capital when lending to these; which means they have dis-incentivized bank lending the most, to what we most need to have access to credit. It is all so loony, especially considering that major bank crisis never result from excessive lending to this type of client… since these are perceived as risky.

Foroohar also writes: “Carrier recently cut a deal with the president to keep 1,000 jobs in Indiana rather than moving them to Mexico, only to come under fire from unions for outsourcing hundreds of others and replacing workers with robots… Those who might in the past have worked $25 an hour factory jobs now do $11-$13 an hour shifts at Walmart.”

That should indicate that our society has been surprised, unprepared, for a major event, namely that immense structural unemployment that might result from the use of robots and other variants of automation. How should we handle it? Do we not need decent and worthy unemployments? Should we at least not tax robots and cousins with any type of taxes we load on the employed so that these latter could at least compete fairly for jobs? There are hundreds of questions waiting to be answered but in this data world, we don’t find any data on for instance how many jobs were effectively taken over by robots and cousins during the last decade.

Of course, as Foroohar says, “when it comes to trade Mr Trump is fighting the last war”. But the main reason for that is that no one informed Trump or the rest that there was a new war going on”. Did anyone mention the insane bank regulations war on risk-taking, the oxygen of development? Did Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders talk of the robots coming? Was a Universal Basic Income possibility raised in any town-hall meeting? Who told Trump and the electorate that the building the Mexico Wall could itself represent the last decent job opportunities for many, on both sides of the wall? Sir, clearly the world has a lot of urgent catching up to do. 

@PerKurowski

Any party named Labour has a major difficulty deciding on its future in these days of robots and automation.

Sir, I know too little about British politics to venture myself into commenting on Janan Ganesh’s lamentations in “Labour saunters into history’s mausoleum” February 27.

But, that said, just like unions now face having to make their minds up about whether to try to unionize robots or not, a party named “Labour” must think about what to do if, some couple of years down the line, the non-workers represent a significant majority among voters. Could Labour call itself “The Not Working Workers Party” or “The Idle Labourers Party”? Anyway I am sure they could and will come up with something better.

What is clear though is that the fighting for raising the minimum wages, only to give robots a better chance to grab the jobs days are over, and does not constitute a viable political option for the future.

A Universal Basic Income scheme, one which could provide all non-workers with a stepladder to better reach up to the gig-economy, could still be an alternative; although that could mean tearing the party apart, as a UBI would significantly diminish the franchise value of the party’s redistribution profiteering members.

P.S. We sure need decent and worthy unemployments

@PerKurowski

How many more human jobs would there be in xxx, was it not for the unfair competition from robots or automations?

Sir, Sarah O’Connor writes “Britain has been remarkably successful in raising the minimum wage (introduced in 1999) without causing job losses.” “For clues to the productivity puzzle, go shopping” February 22.

How does she know? I have not been in England for some time but when I go shopping in the US and Sweden I sure see plenty of jobs having been taken over by robots and automation. And one of the direct reasons for that is that there is no obligation to pay minimum wages or payroll taxes when employing robots.

PS. Also in order to make sure we get really competitive robots, and do not end up with 2nd class robots we need to tax them, quite a lot

@PerKurowski

Global supply chains should and will change, as robots and automation substitute more and more for cheap labor.

Sir, Shawn Donnan, referring to a recent report by the World Bank writes that a “report by World Bank economists yesterday highlights the fragile state of one historically important engine of global growth — trade” “Policy uncertainty threatens trade growth, says World Bank” February 22.

And he follows up with “One of the big consequences of the explosion in trade agreements in recent decades has been the emergence of global supply chains. Such chains are widely seen by economists to have made businesses more efficient and to have helped boost productivity”

Indeed, but certainly more than policy uncertainty, what could currently affect global supply chains, is that these were based on cheap labor, and more and more cheap labor is being substituted by even cheaper and cheaper robots and automation.

What amazes me is that it is almost impossible to find any statistics; from for instance the World Bank, IMF and OECD, on how many jobs have effectively been taken over by robots and automation, for instance the last year. That to me sure represents a big lacking of data required for projecting tomorrow. 

@PerKurowski

How much of the “productivity” of robots is derived from the fact these are not burdened by as much taxes as humans?

Sir, you write: “A direct tax on robots is not the answer… It makes no sense to penalise technological innovation that raises productivity and creates wealth. Indeed, any rich country that makes automation too expensive risks driving its manufacturers away to lower wage jurisdictions”, “Robot tax, odd as it sounds, has some logic”, February 21.

Indeed, but why does it not work for you the other way around? I mean in that sense human workers are also “penalized” in many ways, like with payroll taxes, and jobs driven away to lower wage jurisdictions.

So, in order to more efficiently allocate labor/capital resources, robots and similar automation should also generate payroll taxes.

You also hold “the bigger question is how policymakers can use the tax system to ensure that growth is more evenly shared”. And there I have my doubts. If you are going to tax robots only to increase the franchise value of the redistribution profiteers, I am not with you at all.

I much prefer all those revenues to become part of the funding of the Universal Basic Income that is needed, in order to be able to better face that structural unemployment to which I referred to, in 2012, with my “We need worthy and decent unemployments”.

PS. Anyone searching on this issue for “robots” on my TeaWithFT blog should be able to determine, just like in the case of “risk weighted” capital requirements for banks, that I have de facto been censored by the Financial Times. Do you feel proud about that Sir?

@PerKurowski

Why has society ignored for so long the structural unemployment that is already here, and that will grow so much worse?

Sir, Sarah O’Connor does all of us an immense favor putting forward data such as “America’s unemployment rate may be close to the lowest in a decade at 4.8 per cent [but] the rising share of people in their prime years (between 25 and 54) who are neither working nor looking for work, now stands at about 20 per cent” “‘Jobs for the boys’ is just half the story in America” February 7.

History is sure going to analyze the question of how a generation that prides itself from having so much knowledge and information at its disposal, could have turned such a totally blind eye to one of the greatest challenges it faces, namely the structural unemployment caused by robots and automation.

Where can we find data about how much robots and automation have substituted for human jobs and salaries, year by year, during for instance the last 20 years? It might exist, but I certainly have not found it.

In 2012, having been worried for quite some time about this issue I wrote an Op-Ed titled “We need worthy and decent unemployments”. But only quite recently are possible remedies to a real inexistence of jobs surfacing into public debate, like that of a Universal Basic Income. Though much too late that is good. Nonetheless the “whys” or the “how comes” of all social blindness to this issue, needs also to be studied.

PS. Why is there no concern with that humans have to so unfairly compete for jobs with robots that are not handicapped by having to carry weights like payroll taxes?

PS. Just like the “whys” or the “how comes” about the silence on stupid bank regulations, based on the silly notion that what is perceived as risky is more dangerous to the bank system than what is perceived as safe, needs to be studied.

@PerKurowski

Brexit contains more true catastrophic risks for the EU and the Euro than it does for Britain

Sir, I refer to Martin Wolf’s “Britain’s leap into the unknown” February 8.

Do I disagree with him? No, if I look at Brexit as Wolf does with a microscope focused solely on Britain. But, from a wider perspective, looking at so many other unknowns, his Brexit concerns takes on some Lilliput against Blefuscu war characteristics.

Why? Many would probably start by mentioning the environmental problems of the earth and overpopulation. But setting these aside there are many other challenges that needs to be considered so as to weigh correctly what could be coming with Brexit. Let me just briefly mention the following three.

First, I have the impression that Brexit carries with it more risk of true catastrophes for EU and the Euro than what it has for Britain. This is not a case Britain leaving a happy family behind. It is more like running away from a very messy dam full of repressed feelings of discontent, ready to burst at the urgings of any able populist, and to which its comfortable and full of themselves technocracy is unable to respond to adequately.

Second the banking system. Its regulators, with their risk weighted capital requirements, manipulated and distorted the system in such a way that the real economy is not being fed the nourishment it needs; and the banks themselves are bound to collapse, as would collapse any casino that had its roulette table equally manipulated.

Third, the growing structural unemployment caused by robots and automation. The only reasonable response to that seems to be some sort of Universal Basic Income floor, and that is something that must be much easier to develop within a nation. Just thinking of some EU Commissioners having to agree to a uniform Universal Basic Income policy applicable to Germany and Greece is too challenging.

Of course Brexit represents difficulties… but like all difficulties it also encompasses some opportunity. My dear English friends think of it like this. You are now sailing back to your homeland and soon, for good or for bad, you will at least be able to see the white cliffs of Dover again. 

@PerKurowski

PS. And of course you want to be as far away as possible when the Eurozone's debt bomb explodes

When will the competitiveness of your robots be more important to your real economy than that of your human workers?

Sir, if worker productivity had remained as 1950 levels, how many humans workers would have been needed in the world to deliver the 2016 manufacturing production, compared to those 43m who, according to Martin Wolf, were worldwide employed in 1950? I have no idea but definitely many times more than those 145m Wolf indicates as currently employed in 2016. “Tough talk on trade will not bring jobs back” February 1.

Set in this perspective “The main explanation for the longterm decline in the share of manufacturing employment in the US (and other high-income economies)” is not so much what Wolf states “the rise in employment elsewhere”, but the increased productivity of which Wolf also writes.

So, what do we want, the higher productivity that generates “sustained improvement in living standards”, or some lower productivity that could generate more jobs for humans?

Wolf, like most of us, perhaps with exception of those who might still dream of some 60s’ hippie-solutions, rightly prefers the first; and therefore his concern with that in the “US manufacturing employment rose a little… as a result… of productivity’s recent stagnation: in manufacturing, output per hour rose only 1 per cent between the first quarters of 2012 and 2016.”

The crudest implication of this is: do we need humans more capable to work or better robots? That question naturally leads to: will the competitiveness of the robots they possess, define the strength of future human groupings?

Sir, for me these are much more fundamental questions than that of: how can we save jobs for [our] manufacturer workers from being taken away by [their] workers?

In 2012 I wrote an Op-Ed titled “We need decent and worthy unemployments”. Perhaps within the application of a Universal Basic Income scheme, lies part of the solution to the enormous societal challenges automation causes.

But, no matter what we do, let us get rid of those dangerous distortions of the allocation of bank credit, because, whatever the future needs, how on earth are you suppose to give it to the future, if one is not willing for banks to take risks. Again, as a minimum minimorum, we must save ourselves from regulators so dumb they assign a 20% risk weight to that so dangerous to the bank system as the AAA rated, while hitting the innocuous below BB- rated, with a 150% risk weight.

Sir, I want my grandchildren to be able to develop themselves the most they can, as humans. That will require them being surrounded by content and happily unemployed humans, as well as possessing savagely efficient (and obedient) robots.

PS. The absence of statistical information on how much robots and other automation have substituted for human salaries and jobs, is baffling, especially in these data days. No wonder we might be in sore need of some artificial intelligence assistance, like from for instance IBM’s Watson.

@PerKurowski

A tax on robots or similar substitutes for humans, and a Universal Basic Income, solves many of the challenges of automation.

Sir, Guy Wroble writes: “As automation will target more expensive labour first, aside from a limited number of tech jobs to service the machines, humanity would appear to be on the road to becoming the hewers of wood and the haulers of water. Jobs which pay so little that it makes no sense to automate them. “Automation may lead to humans hewing wood” January 17.

Indeed that could happen, if we do not do anything about it. But we can! Tax all what substitutes for human jobs, and have those tax revenues help fund a Universal Basic Income payable to all.

That way we would not only level the field for humans to compete with robots and similar, but we would also make sure humans do not have to offer themselves to perform the chores that robots are most suited to do.

@PerKurowski

Higher import tariffs and minimum wages are superb news… for robot manufacturers

Sir, Richard Waters writes: “Pace of automation will depend on how easily workers are displaced” January 13.

And that partly depends on how much robot, driverless cars and similar automation options, will lobby the governments for higher import tariffs and higher minimum wages.

Or on if we will impose some payroll and minimum wage taxes on these, in order for the humans to compete on a more level playing field.

PS. http://teawithft.blogspot.com/2016/10/let-robots-make-us-offer-we-cant-refuse.html

@PerKurowski

According to FT’s research, how much do minimum wages and absence of payroll taxes favour robots?

Sir, Vanessa Houlder writes: “When you book an Airbnb room in London, around a third of the $100 saving you make over the price of an average hotel room is due to tax advantages which favour Airbnb’s business model, according to research by the Financial Times” “Airbnb makes most of legal wiggle room to beat hotels” January 3.

Houlder goes on with: “Research from Morgan reported a higher than expected “cannibalisation of traditional hotels” over the past year, citing survey findings that 49 per cent of Airbnb users in the US, UK, France, and Germany had replaced a hotel stay with a stay booked through the online group.”

Indeed, since it is a human owner of an apartment eating up the opportunity from a human owner of a hotel room, it could be described as “cannibalization”. But, how should we describe when for instance a robot or a driverless car takes away a job opportunity from humans? If, for instance, that happens only because of minimum wages and absence of payroll taxes, is that more like human-offerings at the altar of automation and technology?

@PerKurowski

Will we humans end up banning ourselves from driving because we’re too risky?

Sir, John Gapper concludes, “in a world of cheap, convenient self-driving vehicles, only the wealthy and fussy will bother to buy a car” “Why would you want to buy a self-driving car?” December 8.

Wait a second. Is Gapper saying that only the wealthy, buying cars, might save some jobs? That does not sound like too politically incorrect in these get rid of inequality Piketty days.

But, jest aside, what I most fear, is the day we humans ban ourselves from driving altogether, because we are not safe enough, because we are too risky.

With automation substituting us humans in so much, what mutations will that provoke? What capabilities will we lose?

PS. Beware though of a Basel Committee for Transit Supervision. If it interferes, like the Basel Committee in the process of allocating bank credit to the real economy, then the human race might disappear in the mother of all massive car crashes.

@PerKurowski