TLDR: High wages incentivize automation (ie. increased productivity)
Another argument in favor of higher wages. But high wages aren't happening on their own, and thus we may need a policy like UBI (universal basic income) to increase wages by enabling more people to drop out of the labor force for unenjoyable jobs.
I think it’s a little more complicated. Many countries discourage illegal immigration on the surface while having plenty of loopholes that encourage it.
Frankly many people want a cheap labor force and their are plenty of people from other nations willing to supply it.
Except you don't look at regulations to judge whether immigration is high. You look at the numbers for actual inflows of people and compare to the past. Certainly for eg. the UK the numbers for recent years are sky high compared to decades ago, so to claim that "immigration is restricted look at the requirements" is to ignore empirical reality.
The original post I was replying to said "significantly restrict immigration". As we are finding out, to reduce immigration absolute numbers requires increasingly inhumane, bureaucratic, arbitrary and impractical processes.
We could call it "council housing". We could even observe that, left to the free market, housebuilding can become unacceptably cramped and poor quality, and decide to raise the minimum standard.
There doesn't seem to be the political will to do what is necessary. House building is up but its nowhere near where it needs to be to remove that constraint.
Not necessarily. It is true that more money in the hands of tenants means landlords will try to increase rent as much as possible. But the introduction of any significant basic income would have wide-ranging knock-on effects, changing the price of pretty much everything. It would increase the influx of money to deprived areas, and at the same time make people a little less dependent on moving to where the good jobs are.
The result could be that today's high demand areas see less demand, with rents actually going down. Or it could be quite different. What I'm sure of, however, is that any simple model fails to capture the changes.
>enabling more people to drop out of the labor force for unenjoyable jobs.
>unenjoyable jobs
What an odd concept. Only in the last few decades have people even been taught the concept to pick a job you 'enjoy'.
I'm wondering if every human had the option to get UBI or work, what they would choose.
In a heart beat I'd trade my 9-5 that pays over 6 figures to never have to work again.
I think its also worth mentioning that humans are doing so well, that maybe UBI isnt needed. Homes/food/transportation etc... are all the cheapest in human history. Ive already noticed that I could potentially retire in the next few years.
My expertise is food prices, google Calories Per Dollar. Thats my website. If you are going to claim food prices have gone up, you are talking about government caused inflation.
I find the home situation the easiest to find a counterpoint, so we will only argue about definitions.
Per sq footage, its the cheapest. If you try hard enough, you can find a way to be correct. Change the metric, make it so only 1 person can live per home, and pick a city that is getting popular rather than the rural midwest with roommates.
I'm going to side with you on healthcare, the entire field is corrupt and abusing customers to line their own pockets. This is a corruption issue rather than a scarcity issue.
I don't think it's an odd concept to strive for robots to do the drudgery while freeing humans to live their lives how they wish.
> In a heart beat I'd trade my 9-5 that pays over 6 figures to never have to work again.
> Ive already noticed that I could potentially retire in the next few years.
Great. You have a comfortable amount of savings and could probably continue to maintain a relatively decent quality of life without your job. Many others would love to take that 6 figure job off your back. In the end, you will be better off by being able to retire early and live a life of leisure, and the new worker will be better off because they now get to work a well-paying job that they want more than you.
Housing is most definitely not the cheapest in human history, have you seen San Francisco, NYC, London, or hell any major metropolitan city? The U.S. also saddles its citizens with student loan debt and absurdly expensive healthcare.
> I don't think it's an odd concept to strive for robots to do the drudgery while freeing humans to live their lives how they wish.
It's not odd, but it is naive, given that the purpose of automation isn't to eliminate drudgery and free humans to greater personal fulfillment and freedom, it's to capture the value of labor while eliminating human employment.
The need for those humans "freed" by robots to work will remain constant, but the work available and the value of their labor will only ever decrease over time.
While it would be nice to strive for the idealistic scenario you describe, the truth is no one with the power to make it a reality is actually striving for it. Certainly not governments or the corporations implementing the transition from human to automated labor en masse.
Another argument in favor of higher wages. But high wages aren't happening on their own, and thus we may need a policy like UBI (universal basic income) to increase wages by enabling more people to drop out of the labor force for unenjoyable jobs.
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