Reader Question on Robots: What are People Supposed To Do For Their Livelihoods?
October 7, 2013 0

Reader Question on Robots: What are People Supposed To Do For Their Livelihoods?

By News Desk

In response to my post France Vows to "Save the Bookstores", Fixes Price of Books, Bans Free Shipping by Amazon , reader David writes … Hello Mish, I enjoy your columns, and agree with most of your economic analyses, but I do have a question about this morning’s entry regarding France and bookstores: namely, what are people supposed to do for their livelihoods if nearly everything is going to be done by computer and robotics? This is the issue that Hollande, in his outdated, ham-fisted way–is getting at, and for the record, I don’t have the answer, either.  The economy needs middle class consumers, but they in turn need money, which they can’t earn without quality jobs.  In the past, technological development led to more businesses being created than destroyed.  The same was true for quality jobs.  I believe the experience of the last five years, however, has demonstrated that this linkage is impaired, if not completely broken

Netanyahu fear mongering over Iran to mask Israel’s legitimacy deficit
October 4, 2013 0

Netanyahu fear mongering over Iran to mask Israel’s legitimacy deficit

By News Desk

RT The Israeli Prime Minister may have left his cartoon bomb at home, but his latest appearance at the UN contained no shortage of dubious claims aimed at strangling the nascent US-Iran rapprochement in its cradle. Just three days after the historic phone call between US President Obama and Iranian President Rouhani, hopes for a thaw in relations between the two countries were dashed when Obama confirmed that military options were still on the table during a press conference with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office. In his eloquent address to the General assembly, Rouhani explicitly cited the "military options on the table" position as being an illegal and ineffective contention, prior to explicitly declaring, "peace is within reach." Obama’s unwillingness to deviate from his dominant line comes as no surprise looking back to his excessively uni-polar and exceptionalist address to the general assembly