The Future

"Forecasting the future is a tricky thing ... obvious events take forever ... unexpected things happen overnight." -- Anon.

Elon Musk, the charismatic leader of the Tesla, Solar City and SpaceX companies has donned his tinfoil hat to make some interesting predictions about mankind's future. In particular he believes that robots eventually will do just about everything and people will just sit around doing whatever they like ... no jobs, just plenty of leisure time. In an interview with CNBC, he also touted the idea of an universal basic income ... supplied by the government since few would be working for pay ... see: CNBC Story.

Yes, I suppose that someday in the far distant future robots and AI will have altered our lives to a considerable degree, but I somehow doubt that it will be to the degree and in the way Musk envisions. Most humans have a trope that seems to compel them to "work" toward improving their living space. I somehow doubt that armies of robots will diminish this instinct.

A few more points:

- If few people are actually working, how will governments get the money to pay an universal basic income? Tax accumulated capital? If so, what happens when all accumulated capital is depleted? Or could they tax robots? Effectively taxing businesses twice.

- Musk's notion of a fully robotic world would eliminate "cheap labor" economies ... which, in turn, would obviate the need to transport finished goods around the world. All that would be moved from distant place to place would be raw materials and possibly foodstuffs. Might this make for a more insular world ... with resulting tensions? I suppose it might.

- As raw materials on this Earth are depleted I also suppose that Musk's notion of a space travel imperative makes some sense. However, colonizing other inhospitable planets is a challenge that boggles the imagination. Using current science, the cost-benefit analyses of such efforts seems to me futile. Most futurists and science fiction writers conveniently dismiss many of these hurdles. Too many. This future dream might well just be that. A challenge that may prove the limit to humankind's ambitions.

- All this assumes that civilization will not suffer another random shock ... say another plague or ice age ... which plunges us back into another regressive period.  (Global warming would be much easier to deal with.)

Futurists, such as Musk, tend to forecast along a straight-line into our tomorrows ... it is because it is the most obvious. But assembling all the possible variables and accounting for them is almost impossible. Therefore the future is almost always a surprise ... as it should be.

A Disconnect

The straight skinny coming out of the run-up to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland is that five million jobs will be lost in the developed world by 2020 due to the rapid advances being made in artificial intelligence and robotics ... see: Breitbart Story. Compound this with the vast migration of cheap labor and hanger-ons from the third world into the developed world ... this creates an employment disconnect that will be very difficult to reconcile both structurally and politically.

One of the reasons that China has had such dramatic economic growth over the last twenty-five years has been its vast supply of cheap and effective labor. Developed nations, in order to counter this economic advantage, have been (possibly somewhat unconsciously) opening their borders to the underdeveloped nations for immigrant labor ... with the result of reducing their national average personal incomes ... striving for wage and productivity parity with China.

Back to the Davos forecast ... a distinction needs to be made in the forces that are being pointed to for these expected employment reductions. Artificial intelligence mainly is of the mind ... allowing quicker and more effective decisions to be made. This does not necessarily remove the need for labor. (except when these decisions make robots or workers more effective.) It just improves the quality of generic decision making. However, robots in fact do replace physical laborers and thus will reduce actual employment (yet improve productivity.)

If in fact these Davos predictions are accurate, what does it mean for the American economy? Well, clearly the current administration will likely not back off its packing this country with immigrants. And if jobs are indeed drying up, this suggests an even higher percentage of these immigrants receiving government assistance ... with even fewer taxpayers funding these doles for the unemployed ... resulting unfortunately in much higher government deficits. Ouch!

There is only one possible solution in my mind ... start collecting taxes from the robots ...

Immigrants

The federal government has just published some startling numbers on the number of immigrants in the United States ... see: Washington Examiner Story. This U.S. Census Bureau report does not break out the difference between legal and illegal immigrants, but it does indicate that the totals of the two grew by 1.7 million just in 2014 and 4.1 million from the second quarter of 2011 to the second quarter of 2015. As can be seen, this is obviously far more than the norm for this number. The reason for this clearly-planned surge is twofold ... the Democrats' desire for new liberal voters and U.S. farmers, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's and Silicone Valley's desire for more cheap labor ... independent of what it might be doing to this country.

The "official" total number of immigrants is 42.1 million (see my previous blog: Verklempt) and the number of Mexican immigrants in the United States now (at the end of the second quarter of 2015) totals 12.1 million. The total population of Mexico is 123.8 million which says that the United States now harbors roughly 1/10 of their people ... who, in turn, send back to Mexico about $23 billion a year ... see: Daily Mail Story ... which is approximately $1900 per immigrant. This (not including United States transfer payments) represents 1.2% of Mexico's GNP of $1.97 trillion. Perhaps Mexico is incented to allow these emigrants to come here?

Obviously these numbers indicate that Americans are feeling the pressure of this flood of immigrants in loss of job opportunities, increased terrorists' risks and in our burgeoning crime statistics. No wonder Donald Trump seems to have struck a chord with his stand on immigration. By the bye, since I am sure that our government has a pretty good handle on the number of legal immigrants there are in this country ... the number of illegal immigrants can easily be obtained from subtracting this figure from 42.1 million. I strongly suspect that it it far more than 11 or 12 million.

Counterpoint

Recently I wrote a blog specifying all the good things that can be said about the United States ... see: Rose-Colored Glasses. However, daily we see media articles that show these advantages often slip-sliding away. To illustrate this I have juxtaposed below, next to my previously-stated advantages, media stories that show the slow dulling of our nation's edges:

We have a capitalism-driven growing economy ... the largest in the world. See: China Overtakes the U.S. as World;s Largest Economy.

We have a plentiful supply of cheap labor to our south ... anxious to experience our American life. See: Donald Trump Was Right.

We have a premier higher-education system ... the envy of the world ... and one which keeps supplying us with gifted entrepreneurs. See: Higher Education -- Not What It Used To Be.

We have the geographic advantage of being isolated from most of the rest of the world by two large oceans. See: How Geography Explains The United States.

We have a very low inflation rate. See: What Official Inflation Figures Aren't Telling Us.

We have a generally benign climate. See: Scientists Warn Sun Will Go To Sleep In 2020, Cause Temperatures To Plummet.

We have a national park system that is the envy of the world. See: Obama Designates More Than 1 Million Acres For Three New Monuments.

We have the world's best health-care professionals and technology. See: Healthcare Is Getting Worse Under Obamacare.                 

Despite continuing declines, we still have an enormous manufacturing capacity. See: Fast Track To Lost Jobs.

We are currently not in a hot war draining our treasury and supply of young people. See: Pentagon Official Lists Militants, Russia and China As Threats To The U.S.

Most crime in this country is on the decline except in a few hot spots. See: Murder Rate Surges In Major U.S. Cities.

We have a democratic-elected government and all the freedoms provided by our Bill of Rights. See: The Constitution Is Eroding.

We are abundantly supplied with raw materials. See: How Putin's Russia Gained Control Of A U.S. Uranium Mine.

We have a stable currency ... the basis of most world-wide commerce. See: Momentum Builds To Label Chinese Yuan A Reserve Currency

We have the strongest military in the world. See: Lawmakers Blast US Army Force Cuts.

We have a very large middle class that supports our democracy and our way of life. See: The Shrinking American Middle Class.

We have an enormously efficient food-supply chain. See: America.s Fragile Food Supply Chain.

We lead the world in most technological advances. See: U.S. Moving From Technology Leader To Laggard.

We still carry a large surplus of prestige with most world governments. See: The Decline Of U.S. Power?

Now you see "the rest of the story."