Tag: conservative

Minimum wage increases: The opposite of helpful

Minimum wage increases: The opposite of helpful

Like so much of the legislation that comes out of Sacramento, the hike in California’s minimum wage has been touted by Democrats as helping the poor while assuring businesses won’t be harmed. But, like much of that legislation, it’s likely to do the opposite.

In 2014 California’s minimum wage was $8 per hour. Today it is $10.50—a 31 percent increase in just three years. It’s scheduled to increase again in January to $11 an hour followed by annual dollar hikes until it reaches $15 an hour in 2022. That’s an 88 percent increase in the cost of unskilled labor in […]

Make-work schemes need to come back

Make-work schemes need to come back

Wouldn’t a New Deal-style make-work programme be superior to institutionalized loafing? Photo: Bloomberg Many assume that universal basic income will be one of Mark Zuckerberg’s policy platforms when he runs for president. The volume has been turned up to 11 on such speculation since his Harvard commencement speech back in May. In summary, he said people think our labour force has been altered structurally by automation, that some people will be permanently left out of it, and that we should explore ideas like paying everyone a subsistence-level basic income. If people want to earn more, they can.

Libertarians like universal […]

Make-work schemes need to come back

Make-work schemes need to come back

Wouldn’t a New Deal-style make-work programme be superior to institutionalized loafing? Photo: Bloomberg Many assume that universal basic income will be one of Mark Zuckerberg’s policy platforms when he runs for president. The volume has been turned up to 11 on such speculation since his Harvard commencement speech back in May. In summary, he said people think our labour force has been altered structurally by automation, that some people will be permanently left out of it, and that we should explore ideas like paying everyone a subsistence-level basic income. If people want to earn more, they can.

Libertarians like universal […]

How Will Artificial Intelligence Impact the UK Economy?

How Will Artificial Intelligence Impact the UK Economy?

Nearly 50 years since the IT revolution, the fourth industrial revolution is looming and it will be instigated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) . This is the growing phenomenon where machines act like humans. AI can involve analysing large datasets through to automating manual tasks in a factory. Companies such as Facebook are researching ways to help the blind see pictures and Google has a goal to create a self driving car. There is also a plethora of financial startups erupting the market to automise back office operations through to accounting functions. Now seems like the most prevalent time to […]

Robots now appearing in stores as millions of grocery jobs are set to disappear

Robots now appearing in stores as millions of grocery jobs are set to disappear

More warnings from the tech sector, as robots deploy in grocery stores. Shoppers are now seeing a tall, slender robot at some Target stores in San Francisco and in some St. Louis area grocery stores. The robots are part of a test program that once launched will eliminate thousands of grocery jobs. To view this page ensure that Adobe Flash Player version 10.2.0 or greater is installed. The Tally robot can take inventory and audit stores. Close behind are robots that can restock shelves. LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) — Robot developers are close to perfecting Tally, a robot […]

The Finance 202: ‘Made in America’ week belies weak manufacturing numbers

The Finance 202: 'Made in America' week belies weak manufacturing numbers

(c) 2017, The Washington Post.

Welcome to "Made in America" Week, the latest attempt by the White House to get back on offense by hammering a theme from President Trump’s economic agenda.

If past is prologue, drama from the health-care debate and new Russia revelations – reinforced by Trump tweets – will swamp the message. And the domestic manufacturing push starts out as a tough sell for a president whose retail empire outsources much of its production abroad. Ditto for Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and adviser, whose own company relies exclusively on foreign factories in Bangladesh, Indonesia, China and elsewhere, […]

News Analysis: Robots to possibly bring severe repercussions to U.S. society

News Analysis: Robots to possibly bring severe repercussions to U.S. society

Visitors look at a robot at Gateway’ 17 held in Detroit, the United States, June 21, 2017. (Xinhua/Wang Ping) WASHINGTON, July 10 (Xinhua) — While industrial robots are predicted to replace millions of U.S. workers and suppress wage growth in the next decade, reforms in education and social safety net largely lag behind, said a renowned U.S. economist.

"There’s a real mismatch between our institutions and the technologies coming on board," Daron Acemoglu, an economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told Axios Media, an American news website, in an interview published on Sunday night.

Industrial robots have taken over routine […]

News Analysis: Robots to possibly bring severe repercussions to U.S. society

WASHINGTON, July 10 (Xinhua) — While industrial robots are predicted to replace millions of U.S. workers and suppress wage growth in the next decade, reforms in education and social safety net largely lag behind, said a renowned U.S. economist.

"There’s a real mismatch between our institutions and the technologies coming on board," Daron Acemoglu, an economist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told Axios Media, an American news website, in an interview published on Sunday night.

Industrial robots have taken over routine work from human hands in the past several decades. A paper published in March by Acemoglu and Pascual Restrepo, […]

Mark Zuckerberg Suggests the Government Should Give Everyone Free Cash

Mark Zuckerberg Suggests the Government Should Give Everyone Free Cash

By David Ramos/Getty Images. As Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg chips away at his New Year’s resolution to visit all 50 U.S. states—a tour that continues to raise questions about his political ambitions—he stopped in Alaska with his wife, Priscilla Chan, to highlight Silicon Valley’s favorite new policy proposal: giving everyone free money. Alaska, unlike other states, has its own form of basic income, known as the Permanent Fund Dividend, which allocates some of the state’s oil revenue to a fund that gets disbursed to Alaskan residents. Each Alaskan receives a chunk of money through the program; in 2016, every […]

Mark Zuckerberg Suggests the Government Should Give Everyone Free Cash

Mark Zuckerberg Suggests the Government Should Give Everyone Free Cash

By David Ramos/Getty Images. As Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg chips away at his New Year’s resolution to visit all 50 U.S. states—a tour that continues to raise questions about his political ambitions—he stopped in Alaska with his wife, Priscilla Chan, to highlight Silicon Valley’s favorite new policy proposal: giving everyone free money. Alaska, unlike other states, has its own form of basic income, known as the Permanent Fund Dividend, which allocates some of the state’s oil revenue to a fund that gets disbursed to Alaskan residents. Each Alaskan receives a chunk of money through the program; in 2016, every […]