The deflation angle is what most poeple miss in this debate. If we let AI-driven efficiency run its course, costs collapse and everyones quality of life rises even if traditional employment shrinks. The robo-taxi example nails it cause a robot tax would literally block the small operator from competing with Waymo while Waymo absorbs the cost easily. We'd be locking in the exact monopoly concentration everyones worried about.
I think we should instead have payroll tax credits if we want to protect jobs and limit the disruptive affects. Humans are already at a 15% disadvantage in automation due to the payroll tax. So you could start by removing that or even paying businesses to employ people. Then they can if it makes sense to do so.
They already tax the robots when a company says taxes on profits, when a company pays payroll, when shareholders take a capital gain or receive a dividend. When the profits are spent and sales tax.
Taxes on robots and even UBI are solutions for imaginary problems. We can give stimulus checks as needed from a much bigger “pie” if we don’t tax because the economy can grow uninterrupted. But zero technological innovations have resulted in fewer jobs. The nature of what “work” is just changes forms. An actor once had to perform every single time over and over again before the TV. They’d receive a small amount per performance. And today there are directors worth billions and actors worth tens of millions because millions of people can go to the modern “play” equivalent multiple times a night.
Real economics is strange. It isn’t a zero sum game. There was once zero $ in the world and look at how much there is now, various forms all over. There was once no running water or electricity. So it isn’t dividing a budget into slices, because speed of money matters. More wealth creates more wealth if you let it work.
Double a penny 30 times its worth $10M. But tax it 30% each double its worth $25,000. Less government revenue, less wealth to go around.
Cuban is good at navigating Beurocracy so he prefers a world where things get tied up in Beurocracy. But it’s not good for society. The only one it’s maybe good for is Mark Cuban’s ego who knows Elon Musk is about to multiply wealth at a much faster rate. If you can just create more of a drag on human flourishing, Cuban won’t be left in the dust as quickly in terms of relative wealth. But a robot tax means he will have less absolute wealth and so will everyone else
The deflation angle is what most poeple miss in this debate. If we let AI-driven efficiency run its course, costs collapse and everyones quality of life rises even if traditional employment shrinks. The robo-taxi example nails it cause a robot tax would literally block the small operator from competing with Waymo while Waymo absorbs the cost easily. We'd be locking in the exact monopoly concentration everyones worried about.
I think we should instead have payroll tax credits if we want to protect jobs and limit the disruptive affects. Humans are already at a 15% disadvantage in automation due to the payroll tax. So you could start by removing that or even paying businesses to employ people. Then they can if it makes sense to do so.
They already tax the robots when a company says taxes on profits, when a company pays payroll, when shareholders take a capital gain or receive a dividend. When the profits are spent and sales tax.
Taxes on robots and even UBI are solutions for imaginary problems. We can give stimulus checks as needed from a much bigger “pie” if we don’t tax because the economy can grow uninterrupted. But zero technological innovations have resulted in fewer jobs. The nature of what “work” is just changes forms. An actor once had to perform every single time over and over again before the TV. They’d receive a small amount per performance. And today there are directors worth billions and actors worth tens of millions because millions of people can go to the modern “play” equivalent multiple times a night.
Real economics is strange. It isn’t a zero sum game. There was once zero $ in the world and look at how much there is now, various forms all over. There was once no running water or electricity. So it isn’t dividing a budget into slices, because speed of money matters. More wealth creates more wealth if you let it work.
Double a penny 30 times its worth $10M. But tax it 30% each double its worth $25,000. Less government revenue, less wealth to go around.
Cuban is good at navigating Beurocracy so he prefers a world where things get tied up in Beurocracy. But it’s not good for society. The only one it’s maybe good for is Mark Cuban’s ego who knows Elon Musk is about to multiply wealth at a much faster rate. If you can just create more of a drag on human flourishing, Cuban won’t be left in the dust as quickly in terms of relative wealth. But a robot tax means he will have less absolute wealth and so will everyone else