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

If President Trump makes unfit profit on his hotels, so might those who are in the business of opposing him.

Sir, Edward Luce’s “America’s monetiser-in-chief” of February 13, could easily end up being used by all those who by email and other means, ask us to give money to them so that they fight Trump on our behalf.

Currently too many are reminded of Irving Berlin’s song “Anything You Can Do” from the “Annie Get Your Gun” musical. The days open up with a: “Some say they can fight Trump, but I can do that better, I can fight Trump, better than all”, which is then followed by an ever increasing number of voices belting out their, “No you can't. Yes, I can. No, you can't. Yes, I can. No, you can't. Yes, I can, Yes, I can!”

Luce writes: “Even where Mr Trump has the highest motives, he will fail the Caesar’s wife test”. In what world does Luce think we are living? Do not failed Caesar’s wife tests surround us everywhere? Is political profiteering really so much different from business profiteering? Surely if Trump is caught in an act of extending an overt invitation to be corrupted, I am sure that the consequences for him and for the corrupter, will be much more severe than for all those politicians who daily mingle with their dedicated lobbyist.

Sir, I am not condoning any possible Trump shenanigans, and I will protest it as much as you, or even more than you, if and when any real evidence is presented. But, meanwhile, there is a vital need for staying focused on realities and not being distracted by anti-Trump populists or anti-Trump profiteers. 

First, as a Venezuelan still living the “Chavez” era, what Luce describes when preaching for the choir, means nothing in terms of eroding the popularity of a populist. Quite often the opposite happens.

Second, there are too many infinitely more important and urgent issues at hand. Just think of all those robots that compete with us humans for jobs without being burden with payroll taxes and similar handicaps. Just think of those regulatory gnomes distorting as they see fit, with their risk weighted capital requirements, the allocation of bank credit to the real economy.

Third, Trump represents a new wind in Washington, so let’s try to use it as much as we can. For instance the proposal by the Climate Leadership Council of imposing a carbon tax, which revenues would go directly to the citizens, is the best win-win possibility I have seen in many years. If that would be its price, I would gladly look the other way, if those horrendous anti America and anti economic plans of Trump Hotels to quintuple its outlets in America become reality.

PS. Hotel building needs financing, and bankers and investors, must consider the after 4 or 8 years profitability of the hotels.

PS. I have just received an email where someone indicates that after a review they have found that I have yet to donate the minimum $3 to fight Trump, and that I must hurry up. I wonder if someone keeps a list of the 10 largest anti-Trump-movement's profiteers?

@PerKurowski

How do you suggest a contrarian belief to a President without causing him great disconfirmatory feedback discomfort?

Sir, Tim Harford writes that when “I think I’m doing a good job, and then you tell me that I’m not… [research indicates] “that when this, which in the jargon is known as disconfirmatory feedback arrived, workers would then avoid contact with the people who had given them the unwelcome comments.” “If I’m cruising along in a complacent bubble, I badly need someone to explain what I’m doing wrong” January 11.

Bank regulators think they are doing great assigning a risk weight of 20% for what is AAA rated, and 150% for what is below BB-. I tell them they’re wrong, that what’s perceived as safe, contains much more danger than what is perceived as risky. I back it up with Voltaire’s “May God defend me from my friends, I can defend myself from my enemies” … and then the regulators avoid all contact with me. It sure looks like a case of reaction to a disconfirmatory feedback.

But, at a level of a Basel Committee for Banking Supervision should its members not have to be able to handle rationally any disconfirmatory feedback? And what about those even higher up?

For instance, I believe that in the race for jobs in the US, much more important than human competition from China and Mexico, is the fact that Americans have to compete with robots from everywhere that do not have to carry weights like payroll taxes.

Sir, I ask, how can I convey such a belief to a President without risking causing him great disconfirmatory feedback discomfort?

PS. Sir FT, since you have also mostly shut me up, could it be because I have gone over the level of disconfirmatory feedback you can handle? If so, how should we handle it? I ask because I have no wish to give up writing you my mind on so many things you might not agree with.

@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

The worst we could do, is to treat a structural unemployment as a temporal one.

Sir, Gillian Tett writes: “If there is one thing on which almost all economists agree, it is that digital technologies are performing many jobs once done by humans… [and so there’s an] urgent need for a bigger policy debate about how to prepare workers for this new world”, “How robots make humans indispensable”, December 23.

Absolutely, but in this respect, if we face structural and not temporal unemployment then, as I wrote in an Op-Ed in 2012, “We need worthy and decent unemployments”.

For that we must rid ourselves of the negative bias that current unemployment benefits carry. The best alternative in town seems to be a Universal Basic Income, namely the unconditional payout of a fixed amount per month to all citizens, whether unemployed or not. That would help the economy by keeping up consumer demand, and signify a good stepladder for everyone who wants to reach up to a temporary job, a.k.a. a gig job.

How to fund it? There are many alternatives but, in the context of this article, a payroll tax on robots, driverless cars and similar substitutes for humans, seems the way to go, since that would also create a more level playing field when competing for jobs.

Who will be against it? Naturally the redistribution profiteers as that decreases the value of their franchise.

PS. In my homeland I have for decades wanted my nation's net oil revenues to fund such UBI, in this case a variable one, so as to help free us citizens from living under that servitude that 97% of all the nation’s exports going to central government signifies.

PS. In other places UBI and carbon taxes could be a great way to harmonize the incentives for the fight against environmental problems and the fight against inequality.

PS. Ask Trump, what’s worse losing your job opportunity to outsourcing, migrants or robots? If robots, where does he suggest we build the wall and who’s going to pay for it?

@PerKurowski

How do you build a wall against the robots, the biggest threat for manufacturing workers here and there?

Sir, Martin Wolf quotes Richard Baldwin, author of the “The Great Convergence”, with that workers in South Carolina “are not competing with Mexican labour, Mexican capital and Mexican technology as they did in the 1970s. They are competing with a nearly unbeatable combination of US know-how and Mexican wages.” “Trump faces the reality of world trade” November 22.

That has an element to truth in it but, in many ways, the worst competition both Mexican and American manufacturing workers face in the future will come from technology, like robots.

How do you build a wall against job-stealing robots? No matter how that wall was built, your own consuming citizens would end up paying for it by paying higher prices.

One idea I have been toying with lately goes someway along the line of placing some type of payroll taxes on robots; first so as to permit us humans to be able to compete with these on a more level ground; and second so that with those revenues we could partially fund a Universal Basic Income, a Societal Dividend, which could provide us with a step-ladder to easier reach up to the growing gig-economy. 

That said, with respect to Trump and trade-deals I would just remind him of that no nation can be kept strong by cuddling up in comforting isolation and that probably the last legacy any President would want to leave behind him, is that of having weakened the Home of the Brave.

To top that up, quite gently, I would also point out to Trump that USA’s Declaration of Independence clearly states as one of its justifications, the need to stand up to “the present King of England… For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World”.

PS. In this context only as curiosa, the Declaration of Independence also mentions as a justification that “the present King of England…has endeavored to prevent the Population of these States… obstructing the Laws of naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither” 

@PerKurowski

If Uber drivers are considered workers, are not driverless cars, or robots, workers too, to be taxed accordingly?

Sir, Sarah O’Connor, Jane Croft and Madhumita Murgia report on how “Uber drivers in the UK have won a crucial legal battle with a tribunal ruling they are “workers” entitled to the minimum wage and holiday pay.” “British court rules Uber drivers are ‘workers’ in setback for ‘gig economy’” October 29.

Yes, but if so, why are not those driverless cars that are expected to soon be supplanting all drivers not considered workers too?

Sir, as I have written to you before, if we do not tax what will represent lost work opportunities for humans, something’s going to have to give.

I have nothing against artificial intelligence or robots replacing human workers. That’s great, that will leave us humans much more time to enjoy life. But our non-human replacement workers need to be taxed too; and all those tax revenues re-distributed to all of us humans, by means of Universal Basic Income. That so that we humans will be able to afford enjoying all our additional spare time.

And it is all a case of simple justice. If a company does not employ me because of the payroll taxes I generate for him, should not my robotic substitute be charged with those same taxes?

And a Universal Basic Income would make it so much easier for all us humans to adapt to the gig-economy… we would not have to work 16 hours a day to make a living, perhaps 4 hors would do.

PS. I pray for my grandchildren not having to live surrounded by dumb artificial intelligence and lousy 2nd class robots  

@PerKurowski ©

Let robots make us an offer we can’t refuse, for us to allow them to supplant us; perhaps a Universal Basic Income?

Sir, Simon Kuper writes about “How to cope when robots take your job” October 9.

Before I got censored, there too, in 2012, in an Op-Ed in Venezuela titled “We need worthy and decent unemployments” I wrote: “What politician does not speak up for the need to create decent and well paid jobs for young people? But, if that's not possible, and the economy is not able to deliver that on its own ... What on earth are we to do?” 

And I followed that up with “The power of a nation, and the productivity of its economy, which so far has depended primarily on the quality of its employees may, in the future, also depend on the quality of its unemployed, as a minimum in the sense of these not interrupting those working.”

And so perhaps not only journalists but all other who end up unemployed because of robots too, should require those employing robots to pay a out a Universal Basic Income, as a quid-pro-quo for us allowing these to supplant us. Or if they have better ideas, let the robots themselves make us an offer we can’t refuse.

Ideally that could allow many to operate on the fringe margins of earnings, allowing them to keep busy with what they most like to do.

For journalists the alternative could be to get really creative so as to obtain some ad income from a story that goes viral. Sadly, in that case, the temptations of sacrificing truth in order to gain virality might prove to hard to resist… as we already see happening more and more, here and there and everywhere.

PS. Look at it this way. If robots send us into early retirement, should not robots pay taxes too? Should not the employers of robots have to pay payroll taxes for these? That could help to fund our Universal Basic Income. And that could also help us humans to compete with the robots for jobs on a more level playing ground. 

PS. A Universal Basic Income is a step-ladder that will allow us to reach up easier to the gig-economy.

PS. If then taxing robots funds our living by means of a Universal Basic Income, could we all become a robots owning gentry,  reading and writing poetry like Jane Austen’s landed gentry?

PS. Where does Donald Trump suggest we build the wall against the robots who threaten American jobs, and who is going to pay for it?

P.S. How many jobs have robots taken from humans only because robots are not subject to minimum wages and payroll taxes?

PS. Soon unemployed PhD’s will not even be able to drive taxis in New York, as driverless cars will be deemed safer.

PS. I have been concerned with growing structural unemployment for a long time, like to the point of suggesting It's time to just scratch each other's backs.

PS. By the way, in all statistics on employment, where can we find information on how many robots gained employment, for instance in the USA during the last quarter of 2016?

PS. When playing the employment game, humans & robots face same par salary, but robots count with extra payroll tax handicap strokes

PS. Grandparents, can you imagine the horrors if your grandchildren come to depend on dumb artificial intelligence and on 3rd class robots?

PS. I anställning spelet, har både mänskor och robotar samma par lön, men robotar har 31,34% extra arbetsgivaravgift slag.

PS. Here some disorderly lose cannon questions about life in the just around the corner Robot/Automation La-La-Land

PS. Dwindling workforces puts the International Labour Organization (ILO) at a crossroad: To unionize unemployed or robots?

PS. At what rate should we tax robots? A very high one in order to make us humans more competitive, or a fairly low one to allow robots to do as much heavy lifting as possible for us in our economy?

@PerKurowski ©