Back in the day, people used to just say, “Nobody owes you a living.” In fact, it was one of those common phrases that parents repeated over and over to their kids, like, "If all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?” and "If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all."
Most excellent. Of course, the entire premise of the left’s politics is vote buying with taxpayer dollars solely for the purpose of staying in power, the sole purpose of which is to redistribute wealth from the producers to NGOs, favored companies, and left wing groups, and voters.
In other words, it’s a money laundering scheme to grab and hold power, and to further socialism at every turn.
Those days are not over for good, because all that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. It takes MORE energy to conserve something that it does to destroy it.
As usual, well written. It is delicious watching them feel the squeeze of removing USAID from supplementing their failed propaganda programs. More to come. A lot more 👍
Welfare, SNAP and cheap Chinese goods in Walmart are not the American dream. They are not the dream of anyone. Every reasonably sane human wants exactly the same things with respect to satiating their psychological needs… including rising up to be like your privileged self without a real worry in the world for food, shelter, love, etc… so thus allowing for that focus on achieving self-actualization. “Achieving” is the key. Charity is destructive. Egalitarianism in practice is only a virtue signaling placebo for what is really just the pursuit of egoism from the giver… or at it’s worst, a key to achieve power through forced dependency.
That is the key to understanding the modern liberal Democrat. Theirs is a sophisticated machine, one that includes the education system, that has been engineered to enable the top 10% to keep and grow their share of available achievement resources by making access to those resources more difficult for the bottom 80% and replacing the bottom 80%'s ability to earn their own good life with one of dependency for a basic life as made available by the largess of the top 10% doing their tax and spend game. The lack of career achievement options are then exploited to brainwash young people into blaming the actual victims of this Democrat malice... fantastically weaponizing people harmed by their actions to destroy the other people harmed by their actions.
Thank about it... AI is a product of the corporatist profit maximization and corporate primacy pursuit that today relies on most of its protection from the Democrat party. AI is destroying the career opportunities of college-educated young people, and the Democrats have directed the anger over these changes against the Republicans and MAGA that resist, for example, Universal Basic Income benefits and "free" government-run healthcare. Young people demand socialism and their liberal masters support it too as it would enable them complete power and control over the masses.
AI is destroying more than young people’s career’s. In fact of you’re in your 40’s and 50’s your salary is higher and it’s even more profitable to kick you out of your career with an AI replacement. Work hard for decades to build a career and just when you hit your peak earnings to sock away for some sort of retirement you are unemployed and un-hireable even in minimum wage positions due to being “over qualified”. We are all getting screwed.
I get the vibe here, but I think it is too fatalistic. The vibe has been the same throughout history when there have been tectonic technology advances. AI is disruptive, but also just a tool that higher value employees will learn how to leverage to make themselves more valuable for employers. Also, there are a lot of jobs available that AI cannot touch, they require real physical labor.
And there is always the career choice of marriage and raising a family.
Well I am raising a family which was always my first choice but you need a husband that can provide for that. Between H1b and AI this isn’t happening for many. Is for me so far… trying to keep family above water. Turns out we can survive without me working, but we’re have no health insurance, live in a sub par situation, and have had to cash in our retirement savings in our 50’s to feed our kids and launch them. So less than ideal.
As for market shifts I would agree with you but this shift is unlike anything we’ve seen. Adjusting to shifting markets is as old as time. We are looking at half or more of all jobs being replaced in just a couple years time. If you think that’s survivable as an economy or that 90% of us can just become plumbers or something (replaceable by robots in the next 10 years) as an economy you must be a libertarian.
Lose the idea that most working women do so because they just want a bigger house and not to just afford things like health insurance and retirement for their families, things we no longer have.
I do agree that with AI and advanced robotics we will need some national political actions to mitigate what is clearly a situation where there are not enough jobs to sustain the population.
1. A national industrial policy like the Trump administration is one step. Tariffs and other moves to get more production/jobs back to the US.
2. We also need to break up big corporations and prevent corporate mergers that end up with too fee big players controlling too much of the market and thus cutting out the path of small business. Small business tends to hire people as the technology investment is such that it does not pencil out until large enough for economies of scale.
3. I also think we will need tax and regulatory incentives for domestic business that hires rather than using software and robots. Today the combined government spending on job creation and retention is hundreds of billions of dollars every year. It is asinine that we do this while also having policies that encourage offshoring of jobs for corporate profit maximization and corporate primacy. We would be more efficient in just giving tax breaks to business that provides good jobs as a counter to automation. The argument that this puts the US at a disadvantage in competing in the global markets can be mitigated with tax and regulatory relief, but in general the US has $1.5 trillion in trade deficits that we can leverage to sell to ourselves.
4. I own and run two businesses. One is a food product manufacturing business that required I hire a C4-certified pipe welder for a big steam boiler system. Five years ago that was being billed at $150 per hour. There are a lot of trade jobs available where people can make six figures.
5. I don't get the problem with health insurance. You have Obamacare.
6. Housing, insurance, education, childcare... these things are the key budget-hammering items hurting most working-class families. All of them are problems that have solutions if not for those in positions of power with a vested interest in the status quo. Food and other items are also going that same way for the same reasons. The basic explanation is lack of competition that would result in lower cost choices that would then cause the markets to respond by lowering prices. When we elect politicians with a connection to these big Wall Street and corporate donors we get the government we deserve.
You are in that gap and that sucks. What does he do for a living? Can you consider moving somewhere where the cost of living is cheaper?
I am not unsympathetic to your situation. I have two sons in their mid-30s and they work for me. We are all in California. If they did not work for me and get some help from me, they would not be able to afford to live here.
Frankly, the corporate pursuit of profit maximization and corporate primacy (pursuing shareholder returns) is breaking the very system that allows it. Las Vegas and Hawaii are suffering huge declines in visitors. People are just tapped out. Inflation, that is primarily today because of those two things. Now these corporations salivate over AI allowing them to reduce their human workforce... thus depleting the consumer power of even more. Who will buy their corporate products, robots?
Blackrock has snatched up a large percentage of the residential housing inventory... thus driving up rates. Corporations have consolidated and blocked competition and thus have been free to raise the price of everything.
I think it is all coming to a head. The corporations, Wall Street and the top 10% that owns 88% of the stock market is going to be fine with socialism because they will make the bottom 80% dependent on them and that will allow them to keep farming the system for an even greater share of the wealth. People in your situation might be attracted to it... unfortunately, because although it might cover your basics, it will lock you out of moving up.
The alternative will be to put more guardrails in place to prevent all the corporate consolidation and to benefit more small business starts and growth that will provide more jobs and more competition to lower prices. We need to enhance our anti-trust actions. We also need policies that favor human jobs over robots and software.
See, the first rule of command is that one must be worthy of command. Same's true for loyalty. The company's got no right to my loyalty if I KNOW it'll kick me to the curb the second it makes sense on some Excel spreadsheet to do so.
The furlough we had at work six months ago saw armed security at the front doors to prevent overt violence.
Because employees aren't people with lives & dependents, they're means to an end. The company's end. The employees exist to make the company money. That's it. Nothing more. Their paycheck's thanks enough.
You refer to them as “liberals” but they are not; a “liberal” is someone who believes in “live & let live”. These people do not; you’re either down with their “woke” ideology or you’re out - canceled/fired/shunned. That’s not “liberal” that totalitarian.
The Dems/progs have morphed into an ill-liberal party.
Good riddance. Colbert along with John Oliver and Jimmy Kimmel have become insufferable. They force you to ask do the Democrats ever do anything funny anymore?
Does anyone remember when comedians were willing to make fun of the foibles of both parties? Now Colbert, Kimmel, and Oliver are so one sided they sound like scolds. Only Bill Maher, Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle are willing to take shots at both sides. They remain funny. The others not.
This whole article is about how you think you should not have to take responsibility for anything, because it’s not your responsibility as an American. What about pride in helping people?
Sounds like you think we owe you a living and you owe us nothing
We've been taught "capitalism bad," and we don't questioned it. "Is this true? Maybe it's not!"
This is wrong on at least two counts. 1. the US is actually a "mixed ecnomy" with a huge outlay to social programs and 2. capitalism led the poor out of their poverty.
And one last point 3. It feels good when we blame someone else for our woes.
Capitalism is a system that's theoretically based on everyone having the freedom to innovate and the opportunity to succeed, but in practice very few people have that particular combination of traits necessary to thrive.
The fact that it's the only economic system that actually works is not a ringing endorsement.
And THAT'S the problem, isn't it? Too many people using that safety net as a hammock, for one.
It's not just them, either. You have the squeegee jockey who heads back to that three-bedroom bungalow in suburbia after a long day of dirtying up windshields. His brother-in-arms the panhandler, sitting on a concrete island, holding the lid of a pizza box with "HOMELESS. PLEASE HELP." scrawled amidst the grease stains, longing for the orgasmic rush of belting out manufactured sob stories to take the softhearted suckers for five bucks a head.
Interesting take. I wouldn't go that way myself. I think it's about letting go of the rope on owning your destiny. Becoming dependent on perverse incentives, like getting subsidized to be a single mother.
Most excellent. Of course, the entire premise of the left’s politics is vote buying with taxpayer dollars solely for the purpose of staying in power, the sole purpose of which is to redistribute wealth from the producers to NGOs, favored companies, and left wing groups, and voters.
In other words, it’s a money laundering scheme to grab and hold power, and to further socialism at every turn.
Ah, USAID. The stories I could tell and probably will.
Those days are not over for good, because all that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. It takes MORE energy to conserve something that it does to destroy it.
When can we stop paying them?
As usual, well written. It is delicious watching them feel the squeeze of removing USAID from supplementing their failed propaganda programs. More to come. A lot more 👍
Welfare, SNAP and cheap Chinese goods in Walmart are not the American dream. They are not the dream of anyone. Every reasonably sane human wants exactly the same things with respect to satiating their psychological needs… including rising up to be like your privileged self without a real worry in the world for food, shelter, love, etc… so thus allowing for that focus on achieving self-actualization. “Achieving” is the key. Charity is destructive. Egalitarianism in practice is only a virtue signaling placebo for what is really just the pursuit of egoism from the giver… or at it’s worst, a key to achieve power through forced dependency.
That is the key to understanding the modern liberal Democrat. Theirs is a sophisticated machine, one that includes the education system, that has been engineered to enable the top 10% to keep and grow their share of available achievement resources by making access to those resources more difficult for the bottom 80% and replacing the bottom 80%'s ability to earn their own good life with one of dependency for a basic life as made available by the largess of the top 10% doing their tax and spend game. The lack of career achievement options are then exploited to brainwash young people into blaming the actual victims of this Democrat malice... fantastically weaponizing people harmed by their actions to destroy the other people harmed by their actions.
Thank about it... AI is a product of the corporatist profit maximization and corporate primacy pursuit that today relies on most of its protection from the Democrat party. AI is destroying the career opportunities of college-educated young people, and the Democrats have directed the anger over these changes against the Republicans and MAGA that resist, for example, Universal Basic Income benefits and "free" government-run healthcare. Young people demand socialism and their liberal masters support it too as it would enable them complete power and control over the masses.
What a scam these liberal Democrat run.
AI is destroying more than young people’s career’s. In fact of you’re in your 40’s and 50’s your salary is higher and it’s even more profitable to kick you out of your career with an AI replacement. Work hard for decades to build a career and just when you hit your peak earnings to sock away for some sort of retirement you are unemployed and un-hireable even in minimum wage positions due to being “over qualified”. We are all getting screwed.
I get the vibe here, but I think it is too fatalistic. The vibe has been the same throughout history when there have been tectonic technology advances. AI is disruptive, but also just a tool that higher value employees will learn how to leverage to make themselves more valuable for employers. Also, there are a lot of jobs available that AI cannot touch, they require real physical labor.
And there is always the career choice of marriage and raising a family.
Well I am raising a family which was always my first choice but you need a husband that can provide for that. Between H1b and AI this isn’t happening for many. Is for me so far… trying to keep family above water. Turns out we can survive without me working, but we’re have no health insurance, live in a sub par situation, and have had to cash in our retirement savings in our 50’s to feed our kids and launch them. So less than ideal.
As for market shifts I would agree with you but this shift is unlike anything we’ve seen. Adjusting to shifting markets is as old as time. We are looking at half or more of all jobs being replaced in just a couple years time. If you think that’s survivable as an economy or that 90% of us can just become plumbers or something (replaceable by robots in the next 10 years) as an economy you must be a libertarian.
Lose the idea that most working women do so because they just want a bigger house and not to just afford things like health insurance and retirement for their families, things we no longer have.
I do agree that with AI and advanced robotics we will need some national political actions to mitigate what is clearly a situation where there are not enough jobs to sustain the population.
1. A national industrial policy like the Trump administration is one step. Tariffs and other moves to get more production/jobs back to the US.
2. We also need to break up big corporations and prevent corporate mergers that end up with too fee big players controlling too much of the market and thus cutting out the path of small business. Small business tends to hire people as the technology investment is such that it does not pencil out until large enough for economies of scale.
3. I also think we will need tax and regulatory incentives for domestic business that hires rather than using software and robots. Today the combined government spending on job creation and retention is hundreds of billions of dollars every year. It is asinine that we do this while also having policies that encourage offshoring of jobs for corporate profit maximization and corporate primacy. We would be more efficient in just giving tax breaks to business that provides good jobs as a counter to automation. The argument that this puts the US at a disadvantage in competing in the global markets can be mitigated with tax and regulatory relief, but in general the US has $1.5 trillion in trade deficits that we can leverage to sell to ourselves.
4. I own and run two businesses. One is a food product manufacturing business that required I hire a C4-certified pipe welder for a big steam boiler system. Five years ago that was being billed at $150 per hour. There are a lot of trade jobs available where people can make six figures.
5. I don't get the problem with health insurance. You have Obamacare.
6. Housing, insurance, education, childcare... these things are the key budget-hammering items hurting most working-class families. All of them are problems that have solutions if not for those in positions of power with a vested interest in the status quo. Food and other items are also going that same way for the same reasons. The basic explanation is lack of competition that would result in lower cost choices that would then cause the markets to respond by lowering prices. When we elect politicians with a connection to these big Wall Street and corporate donors we get the government we deserve.
Nope we don't qualify for Obamacare. I'm married to the father of the kids and since he's working no Medicaid either.
You are in that gap and that sucks. What does he do for a living? Can you consider moving somewhere where the cost of living is cheaper?
I am not unsympathetic to your situation. I have two sons in their mid-30s and they work for me. We are all in California. If they did not work for me and get some help from me, they would not be able to afford to live here.
Frankly, the corporate pursuit of profit maximization and corporate primacy (pursuing shareholder returns) is breaking the very system that allows it. Las Vegas and Hawaii are suffering huge declines in visitors. People are just tapped out. Inflation, that is primarily today because of those two things. Now these corporations salivate over AI allowing them to reduce their human workforce... thus depleting the consumer power of even more. Who will buy their corporate products, robots?
Blackrock has snatched up a large percentage of the residential housing inventory... thus driving up rates. Corporations have consolidated and blocked competition and thus have been free to raise the price of everything.
I think it is all coming to a head. The corporations, Wall Street and the top 10% that owns 88% of the stock market is going to be fine with socialism because they will make the bottom 80% dependent on them and that will allow them to keep farming the system for an even greater share of the wealth. People in your situation might be attracted to it... unfortunately, because although it might cover your basics, it will lock you out of moving up.
The alternative will be to put more guardrails in place to prevent all the corporate consolidation and to benefit more small business starts and growth that will provide more jobs and more competition to lower prices. We need to enhance our anti-trust actions. We also need policies that favor human jobs over robots and software.
Perhaps the answer is a 90% tax on AI companies to support all the people their "progress" put out of work.
While I jest, SOMETHING'S gotta be done. And that something has to be effective.
Fucking half the population out of even a normal, basic life usually ends in fire.
So much for loyalty.
See, the first rule of command is that one must be worthy of command. Same's true for loyalty. The company's got no right to my loyalty if I KNOW it'll kick me to the curb the second it makes sense on some Excel spreadsheet to do so.
The furlough we had at work six months ago saw armed security at the front doors to prevent overt violence.
Because employees aren't people with lives & dependents, they're means to an end. The company's end. The employees exist to make the company money. That's it. Nothing more. Their paycheck's thanks enough.
Right?
John-
As long as we are talking about what is “owed”, are you going to pay the artist whose work was scraped to produce that AI slop illustration?
You refer to them as “liberals” but they are not; a “liberal” is someone who believes in “live & let live”. These people do not; you’re either down with their “woke” ideology or you’re out - canceled/fired/shunned. That’s not “liberal” that totalitarian.
The Dems/progs have morphed into an ill-liberal party.
Good riddance. Colbert along with John Oliver and Jimmy Kimmel have become insufferable. They force you to ask do the Democrats ever do anything funny anymore?
Does anyone remember when comedians were willing to make fun of the foibles of both parties? Now Colbert, Kimmel, and Oliver are so one sided they sound like scolds. Only Bill Maher, Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle are willing to take shots at both sides. They remain funny. The others not.
Oddly enough, that Sewell quote could equally apply to the CEO’s of almost every Fortune 500 company.
This whole article is about how you think you should not have to take responsibility for anything, because it’s not your responsibility as an American. What about pride in helping people?
Sounds like you think we owe you a living and you owe us nothing
At least one billionaire did step up. The Gates Foundation is more effective than any government foreign aid. The Left hate him.
Stalin had the right program for such people; GULAG.
An old man use to tell me “the world owes you a living, but it is up to you to go get it “.
You are seriously deluded, and heartless
We've been taught "capitalism bad," and we don't questioned it. "Is this true? Maybe it's not!"
This is wrong on at least two counts. 1. the US is actually a "mixed ecnomy" with a huge outlay to social programs and 2. capitalism led the poor out of their poverty.
And one last point 3. It feels good when we blame someone else for our woes.
Capitalism is a system that's theoretically based on everyone having the freedom to innovate and the opportunity to succeed, but in practice very few people have that particular combination of traits necessary to thrive.
The fact that it's the only economic system that actually works is not a ringing endorsement.
It keeps evolving. Our social safety net is huge. But there's also plenty of evidence that the so-called “safety net” does as much harm as good.
And THAT'S the problem, isn't it? Too many people using that safety net as a hammock, for one.
It's not just them, either. You have the squeegee jockey who heads back to that three-bedroom bungalow in suburbia after a long day of dirtying up windshields. His brother-in-arms the panhandler, sitting on a concrete island, holding the lid of a pizza box with "HOMELESS. PLEASE HELP." scrawled amidst the grease stains, longing for the orgasmic rush of belting out manufactured sob stories to take the softhearted suckers for five bucks a head.
Interesting take. I wouldn't go that way myself. I think it's about letting go of the rope on owning your destiny. Becoming dependent on perverse incentives, like getting subsidized to be a single mother.