Quote:
Originally Posted by Jebby
And you seem to refuse to even confront the economic facts. Developers are not interested in building more affordable units in large part due to the policies you propose!
It's incredible how you keep parroting the same ignorant talking points but never address the arguments against your viewpoint.
He was right in that advancing technologies create inefficiencies that create unemployment. However, Aristotle did not see the full picture. It may cause unemployment in terms of that particular function, however, automation does not cause unemployment overall; any savings in labor costs must be either passed on to consumers (who then have extra money to spend or save, either of which produces more jobs) or pocketed by the employer, who then has extra money to spend or save, again producing more jobs. In the event the money is spent, that results in more labor being used to provide products; in the event the money is saved, that makes more investment money available with which to establish or expand businesses in hopes of reaping profits later. Savings results in resources being used for production of capital goods, rather than for production of consumer goods. This makes increased production, and therefore increased consumption, possible in the future.
One way or another, jobs will be created to make up for those that were lost. Of course, it is possible that skilled labor might displace some unskilled labor. For example, a machine operated by one skilled laborer, paid $12/hour, may be able to do work that would have otherwise required three unskilled laborers paid $5/hour apiece. Even then, however, there will be a tendency for those unskilled workers to find jobs somewhere or another.  |
Jebby, the concept of housing affordabiliuty lies in the domain of diminishing consumer purchasing power due to inflation (re: the Time Value of Money Principle) as a function of market scarcity as well as just the redundancies precipitated by evolving/advancing industrial production technologies.
For workers to fully benefit from advancing technologies they would have to own such technologies or else they will see their jobs/income cut (if for no other reason than falling prices and profits as output/production rises on the basis of increased efficiency).
As for the owners of production capital, their capacity to hoarde wealth does not automatically equate with investment opportunities because if you understand that the economy is finite and thus limited in terms of the scarce existence of wealth (the premise of economics 101 at LSE) then you'll understand that weak market demand (as experienced say during the Great Depression) will prove a disincentive for investment spending thus opening up a need for government intervention (ala Keynesian New Deal economics and communism etc.).
Do you know what the post World War II role of the IMF and World Bank are in terms of opening up and expanding market access for Western firms as Western governments sought to eliminate the market restrictions that helped fuel their Great Depression? Hence we see a global government system via the IMF seeking to promote "free market" capitalism/trade given the natually built-in economic imbalances of global trade based on the value added paradigm (which you can't dismiss).
