[quote=dumbrenter]
The productivity might increase in coming decades, but if the increase is from robots and computers, what does that do with the welfare spending? Because Robots don’t pay taxes. Do you think the tax tab will be picked up by the companies that use them?
Or do you expect we will go thru another cycle of adjustment as from farms to industries?[/quote]
How this plays out is anyone’s guess. But personally I think that capitalism as an economic system doesn’t work in the future. (I know that sounds extreme, and in general I’m a believer that things are getting better, not a doomsayer so don’t take it as some pronouncement about the end is nigh.)
My suggestion is to think of it this way. Robots/computers filling many/most of the jobs means lots of low cost production. When you think of it that way, honestly it’s not a problem but a good thing. However, now the question comes as you point out, how do we distribute this production? My personal fear is that we (all us humans) go through a very difficult time politically as we transition from our current system of capitalism to some other system. How that plays out, how smoothly vs how chaotic that change is, what are the details of that new economic order? Beats me. But the world has changed in the past, and it will change again in the future.
One thing I would stress however is that pronouncements about how this coming wave of robots and computers plays out is largely a guessing game. And much of it will happen without people seeing it coming.
Which brings me back to what Bill Gross is doing. He’s making guesses about what the future holds based on taking the current trends/systems and extending them forward. Personally, I think there is way too much disruption in our futures for that to be a valid methodology. All I’ve done is found a likely disruptor and thrown it out so you can see how easily his guess goes awry. My guesses could just as easily go awry.
