my platform as presidential candidate - what's yours?
POSTED BY: rue
UPDATED: Monday, June 3, 2024 14:50
VIEWED: 27072
PAGE 5 of 27
They tried a scan-and-go at my local Ralphs, and it was such a boondoggle I was told (by a cashier) that it got the manager fired. It's not that they can't be made to work, but these were just so fucking quirky ... there wasn't enough room in the bagging area for even a half-cart of groceries, and if you tried to remove items to make more room it would stop and nag you until you put them back, and if you tried placing bags in the bagging area before you started so you could pile up more groceries it would halt and tell you to remove the unscanned items. And then, on top of that, it couldn't scan anything with alcohol in it, if you had a coupon you needed assistance (why you couldn't just scan that in too is beyond me) and then ... as I found out ... they needed a cashier just to monitor the self-checkout line to make sure that people weren't just putting stuff into their cart without it being scanned.
So if this is the same system as installed at our local Ralphs... yeah, good luck with that.
But I agree, our local bank got rid of most of their tellers with auto-tellers inside (can do everything I want it to except deposit coins), Home Depot has self-checkout, there are quite a number of fast-food chains and coffee shops experimenting with automated burger-flippers and milk-frothers ...
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .
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I doubt talks of raising the minimum wage has much to do with any of this, really.
It has been the dream of the people running the show to automate everything that can possibly be automated. I don't think there is any real "ramping up" going on right now, and that's just a convenient political argument against raising the minimum wage.
Like it or not, this is the future. 12 years ago my salary was sent to India to pay 5 or 6 people with masters degrees to do much more work, and they lived like kings off of that pay. I'd be really surprised if more than 30% of what I used to do back then even requires any human input at all anymore.
These days, I can't even feel relatively safe that a manual labor job that can't be outsourced to another country is going to be around in another 5 or 10 years because of automation, or at least changing the entire way people shop online. Hell... even the trucks that haul all of our shit all over the country are going to be driving themselves in my lifetime.
I don't mean to sound like a Socialist, but I do think that given these advancements it is time to start legitimate discussions on a Universal Basic Income.
The only Democratic candidate I've heard talk about it is Andrew Yang. While he fully supports the UBI, he is against raising the minimum wage... Automation being one of the reasons. Another one being that a larger minimum wage equates to more taxes paid.
https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/
EDIT: Incidentally, the amount of theft that occurs with scan and go is outrageous, but it was put in the budget beforehand. Low maintenance registers with a one time installation cost save a bundle over human employees and they don't get paid any benefits or call in sick.
You've got to remember that these corporations that are struggling don't really put any emphasis on customer service anymore. The quirks that present themselves, such as needing human input for the use of coupons or alcohol purchases aren't anything that they really care about. The only thing that matters in the end is the bottom line.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
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What's wrong with US foreign policy:
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JO, I;m not ignoring your platform, I like a lot about it, but it's long and will take a lot of time to comment. Thanks for putting up the link, and RUE, thankss for copying it here.
-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake
"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND
America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876 .
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Quote:I poked around a little. It gets harder and harder to chase down the facts.
Originally posted by rue:
At some point I hope to go here and just look at year-by-year January totals. I'm posting this here for reference: https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/mspd/mspd.htm
And I have to remember to see of bond sales are included as debt, since afaik dubya kept war-spending out of the budget with 'emergency spending' bills paid for by bonds.
Currently the search results for "gross Federal Debt" produce nothing at Google except redirections to National Debt. Also, Wikipedia now redirects the same quote to National Debt as well. Shocking that these 2 Libtard sources have such Libtard slant.
Yahoo does produce much better results, but still not much accurately. To be clear, I use Canada Yahoo. CA.yahoo.com
Try this:
Fred.stlouisfed.org/series/fygfd
It's interactive plotted graph.
Shows 1998 was 5468.2, 99 was 5605.5, 00 was 5628, 01 was 5769.
Libtard Maths might show that those are reductions in the Gross Federal Debt, presumably caused by Budget Surplus. I don't have the Libtard Maths App.
Using rational cyphering, each of these years has an increase in Debt, meaning each and every year was a Deficit year. But some Libtards still claim increases in Debt are caused by Surpluses, or maybe are just gullible twits.
Hope that helps getting through the lies.
Or maybe the Fred is lying too.
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Quote:Starting with the "bottom line" comment: Apparently the installation of such dysfuncational self-scan machines caused SUCH a loss in sales that the manager was fired. I know that in THIS case it doesn't mean that automation can't work and won't increase, but this is one instance where it didn't.
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I doubt talks of raising the minimum wage has much to do with any of this, really.
It has been the dream of the people running the show to automate everything that can possibly be automated. I don't think there is any real "ramping up" going on right now, and that's just a convenient political argument against raising the minimum wage.
Like it or not, this is the future. 12 years ago my salary was sent to India to pay 5 or 6 people with masters degrees to do much more work, and they lived like kings off of that pay. I'd be really surprised if more than 30% of what I used to do back then even requires any human input at all anymore.
These days, I can't even feel relatively safe that a manual labor job that can't be outsourced to another country is going to be around in another 5 or 10 years because of automation, or at least changing the entire way people shop online. Hell... even the trucks that haul all of our shit all over the country are going to be driving themselves in my lifetime.
I don't mean to sound like a Socialist, but I do think that given these advancements it is time to start legitimate discussions on a Universal Basic Income.
The only Democratic candidate I've heard talk about it is Andrew Yang. While he fully supports the UBI, he is against raising the minimum wage... Automation being one of the reasons. Another one being that a larger minimum wage equates to more taxes paid.
https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/
EDIT: Incidentally, the amount of theft that occurs with scan and go is outrageous, but it was put in the budget beforehand. Low maintenance registers with a one time installation cost save a bundle over human employees and they don't get paid any benefits or call in sick.
You've got to remember that these corporations that are struggling don't really put any emphasis on customer service anymore. The quirks that present themselves, such as needing human input for the use of coupons or alcohol purchases aren't anything that they really care about. The only thing that matters in the end is the bottom line.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
ABOUT UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME (UBI): In a rational world, if goods aren't produced by people then access to goods shouldn't be tied to "work". That in fact was the end state that Marx predicted. HOWEVER, there is one giant barrier to UBI, and that is the fact that the USA buys a lot of its manufactured goods from abroad (where they are NOT produced by automation). That means that these other nations have to accept the dollar as credible payment, which means that when they bring these dollars back to the USA they have to be able to purchase something of equivalent value. With no manufacturing here, what are they going to purchase? More Treasuries? And what do those Treasuries get them? More paper money?
Who is going to issue this UBI? The government? Will it just add to the debt? Will the government then have to pay the Fed interest on this debt? And who pays for this interest? The taxpayers? Unless the tax structure is changed to take more money from the corporations and (especially) banks and other financialists, this will simply bleed the middle class, again.
The concept of UBI is just the government stepping in, one more time, to paper over the essential contradiction of capitalism, which is - as FREM explained - like one person at a poker table taking 10% of the money each round. Eventually, the table runs out of money. People have advocated for a long time (Keynes, FDR, GWB, Obama, AOC etc) that the government step in and inject more money into the system
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Quote:Starting with the "bottom line" comment: Apparently the installation of such dysfuncational self-scan machines caused SUCH a loss in sales that the manager was fired. I know that in THIS case it doesn't mean that automation can't work and won't increase, but this is one instance where it didn't.
Originally posted by SIGNYM:Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I doubt talks of raising the minimum wage has much to do with any of this, really.
It has been the dream of the people running the show to automate everything that can possibly be automated. I don't think there is any real "ramping up" going on right now, and that's just a convenient political argument against raising the minimum wage.
Like it or not, this is the future. 12 years ago my salary was sent to India to pay 5 or 6 people with masters degrees to do much more work, and they lived like kings off of that pay. I'd be really surprised if more than 30% of what I used to do back then even requires any human input at all anymore.
These days, I can't even feel relatively safe that a manual labor job that can't be outsourced to another country is going to be around in another 5 or 10 years because of automation, or at least changing the entire way people shop online. Hell... even the trucks that haul all of our shit all over the country are going to be driving themselves in my lifetime.
I don't mean to sound like a Socialist, but I do think that given these advancements it is time to start legitimate discussions on a Universal Basic Income.
The only Democratic candidate I've heard talk about it is Andrew Yang. While he fully supports the UBI, he is against raising the minimum wage... Automation being one of the reasons. Another one being that a larger minimum wage equates to more taxes paid.
https://www.yang2020.com/policies/the-freedom-dividend/
EDIT: Incidentally, the amount of theft that occurs with scan and go is outrageous, but it was put in the budget beforehand. Low maintenance registers with a one time installation cost save a bundle over human employees and they don't get paid any benefits or call in sick.
You've got to remember that these corporations that are struggling don't really put any emphasis on customer service anymore. The quirks that present themselves, such as needing human input for the use of coupons or alcohol purchases aren't anything that they really care about. The only thing that matters in the end is the bottom line.
Do Right, Be Right. :)
ABOUT UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME (UBI): In a rational world, if goods aren't produced by people then access to goods shouldn't be tied to "work". That in fact was the end state that Marx predicted. HOWEVER, there is one giant barrier to UBI, and that is the fact that the USA buys a lot of its manufactured goods from abroad (where they are NOT produced by automation). That means that these other nations have to accept the dollar as credible payment, which means that when they bring these dollars back to the USA they have to be able to purchase something of equivalent value. With no manufacturing here, what are they going to purchase? More Treasuries? And what do those Treasuries get them? More paper money?
Who is going to issue this UBI? The government? Will it just add to the debt? Will the government then have to pay the Fed interest on this debt? And who pays for this interest? The taxpayers? Unless the tax structure is changed to take more money from the corporations and (especially) banks and other financialists, this will simply bleed the middle class, again.
The concept of UBI is just the government stepping in, one more time, to paper over the essential contradiction of capitalism, which is - as FREM explained - like one person at a poker table taking 10% of the money each round. Eventually, the table runs out of money. People have advocated for a long time (Keynes, FDR, GWB, Obama, AOC etc) that the government step i
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I'm not ignoring this thread or the discussions (or your posts Jack), but I'm rationing my inet time since I have a lot to do. YAY retirement but only the first week felt like vacation. After that all the stuff I failed to get done while employed started pestering my mind.
More about the wonders of US foreign policy:
The International Criminal Court abandoned an Afghanistan war-crimes inquiry that could have implicated American forces.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/world/asia/icc-afghanistan-.html
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Quote:If you have heard of the My Lai Massacre, then you would know the American tradition about war-crimes. More than 500 people were slaughtered. Only one American soldier was guilty. Nixon freed him.
Originally posted by rue:
More about the wonders of US foreign policy:
The International Criminal Court abandoned an Afghanistan war-crimes inquiry that could have implicated American forces.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/world/asia/icc-afghanistan-.html
Later investigations have revealed that the slaughter at My Lai was not an isolated incident. Other atrocities, such as a similar massacre of villagers at My Khe, are less well known. A notorious military operation called Speedy Express killed thousands of Vietnamese civilians in the Mekong Delta, earning the commander of the operation, Major General Julian Ewell, the nickname “the Butcher of the Delta.” No one was charged with war-crimes. That is how the system works.
www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/my-lai-massacre-1
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I've copied most of it here:
KaN YQ KoWNT, SUKRZ?
SoRE FOR XU DELAD RESPoNS. KoMPLIMeNTS oN XU PRFIKT NQaLF. xaNKS FOR REPOSTING U BIG CUNK UV XU SiT.
It seemz we are in oppozit situationz - you resently gained a bunch uv free time, I resently lost a bunch.
A few comments after reading this thred:
Long ago I red that the goverment wuz the larjest employer in the country. Its probably still true. The 'small goverment' notionz uv Libertarianish peepl iz that starving the goverment will help the economy ignorez this. Most goverment jobz pay a living waje, so The Goverment iz a big chunk uv the middle class.
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Garanteed Basic Income iz the only realistic solution to economic sustainability in the end.
In the plase I work, machinez are doing 95% uv the work. Us humanz struggle to keep up with their output and are only there kuz the company PTB havent desided to fully automate yet. The tek exists to reduse the staff to maintinens teknitionz and a few administratorz.
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Dont think uv the US international military prezenz az an expens, think uv it az a critical part uv maintaining our pozition az the Top Dog.
How much woud it cost if sum ambitious bad boy, uzing hiz unhindered resoursez, develops a credible arsenal uv WMD, spy network, army, etc. and starts to uze it? ('uze' meanz try to bekum the Top Dog)
The ansr iz obvious.
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Sorry, everybody, for not getting to everything. Az mentioned, I dont hav much free time.
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DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early
http://www.7532020.com .
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