It is a rare economist who moves beyond David Riccardo's Law of Comparative Advantage that underpins the doctrine of Free Trade as the path to economic prosperity. Riccardo's elegant theory assumes that labor is a fungible input to production and will simply retool itself to support what a country is good at. It is not. Disrupting the labor "market" generates huge economic and social costs, and creates winners and losers. In theory, the gains of the winners are so much greater than the losses of the losers that losers can be compensated for their disrupted lives and communities. In practice, it does not happen.
I really admire American Compass’s dedication to the ability of normal people to flourish. But it’s obvious that this administration—from the obviously corrupt way they wave through harmful mergers, hand out immunity to big agribusiness as they poison rural communities, botch competition with China and undermine our potential anti-hegemonic coalition, expose ranchers to South American competition while refusing to deal with meat processing monopolists, jet around inking trade deals that promote Big Tech without fostering reindustrialization, pump crypto scams, block AI safeguards, and protect the predations of the Epstein class—are anti-social thieves and not populists at all. The writing’s on the wall; everyone is going to need to denounce and fight the increasingly toxic Trump kleptocracy. Will American Compass be a leader, or a laggard?
Well I think a lot of things are worse now, actually, but no I don’t defend the old status quo. I’m saying I like the American Compass ideas—Trump’s just not doing that
It’s hard to understand how anyone can make any judgement about the current administration. It operates in a different way than any other administration that relied on the past to predict the future. One year in and people think they know what is going on and what the future will be. They don’t because they don’t have the basic knowledge to understand what this administration is doing.
What it was elected to do was change our lives by changing how the government operated. It is doing that. I find it short sighted to think a year is enough time to make any such judgement. As we have seen pretty much all along, the critics are rarely proven right in the end.
Do I agree with Compass? It was obvious to me a long time ago the more business paid their employees would the spend and would be for the betterment of business. Once again, you need a lot of business’ to do the same thing. Over 10 years ago, maybe longer, I was reading 30% unemployment by 2030 due to AI. The date maybe a little off but the prediction is good. Trump is trying something new. Whether or not it works will be seen. The Dems will raise taxes, allow real corruption, I’ve yet to see any figures on Trump’s supposed corruption, and the rich will eventually leave. Where are we then. I’m more than willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. Correcting decades of government mismanagement doesn’t happen over night.
I read almost all the way through the Citrini article and found all of it to be believable and compelling but not that concerning. While it's true that we are a services economy and the vast majority of the spending is on houses/cars/renovations/vacations/private schools by the 20%, they can learn to do something productive I'm sure.
Maybe the lowering of standards for the top quintile will be the impetus for a real social safety net, or a wage for everyone high enough to buy a modest house and go to the doctor.
Did people really think we could sell each other haircuts in perpetuity? Eventually you have to make things.
And therefore we need to get done with the service economy - loads of low-wage jobs that we have to work two or three of to pay the bills. We'll always have retail and related jobs (that can hopefully go back to teenagers and college students at a decent wage), but they shouldn't be our whole economy.
My push back is that the adjustment would be extremely painful and it would decimate blue collar wages too. Who will buy all those services? Is it wise to bet against the elite class who often made straight As in school? If the top 5-15% become electricians, then I expect them to crush that field as they did in every other field.
People with money now pay for others to do the most basic chores many of which they are too stupid to do themselves. "Straight As" is meaningless, Newsome scored 950 on his SATs and wants to be President. Anyone who wants to be an electrician is welcome to try, but they should be content with being a helper until they begin to understand what needs to be done.
"Too stupid to do themselves". This is where I highly, highly disagree and see the blue collar elitism shining in full force. Wealthy people pay for these services because their time is better spent elsewhere and they can afford to do so. If these folks lose their jobs, they will not pay for these services and will learn to fix things themselves. These are people who did very well in school and can understand concepts quickly. It will take time to learn and they will have to go through technician school, but they will do very well when they get out. I think blue collar folks who claim that white collar people are incapable of doing their trade are kidding themselves. They see them as lazy and out of touch, which is true to a certain extent. It is also true that every marathoner, Ironman, cross fitter, and extreme athlete is more likely to hail from wealthy backgrounds. These people are fit and intelligent.
I wonder if the people most concerned about AI have actually worked with AI (as it currently is, not the “way it will be some day”). I’ve been a “knowledge” worker for 30 years. AI is liberating. If we’re honest, a lot of “knowledge” work is a grind. Listening to or reading endless transcripts of customer interviews for market research. Fifteen 165 slide PowerPoint decks to slog through to get a background on a product and its strategy. Stacks of company 10Q and 10Ks to grind through to get a nugget of information. AI takes a lot of that away, or at least compresses the time needed to process all that. What it doesn’t do is replace critical thinking and that’s where my original comment comes in. If people’s think AI will replace critical thinking and strategic decision making then they haven’t worked with AI that much. And it won’t replace CT. Companies that try to do that will get buried by companies that empower their employees with AI to make better, faster decisions, not replace their thinking. But we’ll see. I think we’re at the beginning of a golden age of work. (Cf Milton Friedman on using spoons, shovels or machines to dig ditches)
Yes, the neo con deepstate globalists are the establishment, so true (it became very profitable to be so). A lot of them especially growing up in the 60's hate this too! lol What would Bob Dylan and John Lennon ect. think? establishment lol so funny. They are the mainstream.
Sorry to not know who Micron is, but I guess they're coming to Syracuse to build a plant and...create jobs. So why is a workers' rights group up in arms?
It is a rare economist who moves beyond David Riccardo's Law of Comparative Advantage that underpins the doctrine of Free Trade as the path to economic prosperity. Riccardo's elegant theory assumes that labor is a fungible input to production and will simply retool itself to support what a country is good at. It is not. Disrupting the labor "market" generates huge economic and social costs, and creates winners and losers. In theory, the gains of the winners are so much greater than the losses of the losers that losers can be compensated for their disrupted lives and communities. In practice, it does not happen.
I really admire American Compass’s dedication to the ability of normal people to flourish. But it’s obvious that this administration—from the obviously corrupt way they wave through harmful mergers, hand out immunity to big agribusiness as they poison rural communities, botch competition with China and undermine our potential anti-hegemonic coalition, expose ranchers to South American competition while refusing to deal with meat processing monopolists, jet around inking trade deals that promote Big Tech without fostering reindustrialization, pump crypto scams, block AI safeguards, and protect the predations of the Epstein class—are anti-social thieves and not populists at all. The writing’s on the wall; everyone is going to need to denounce and fight the increasingly toxic Trump kleptocracy. Will American Compass be a leader, or a laggard?
So, you want to go back to the pre Trump world? All things you complain about started pre Trump. But please give us your plan to correct it all.
Well I think a lot of things are worse now, actually, but no I don’t defend the old status quo. I’m saying I like the American Compass ideas—Trump’s just not doing that
It’s hard to understand how anyone can make any judgement about the current administration. It operates in a different way than any other administration that relied on the past to predict the future. One year in and people think they know what is going on and what the future will be. They don’t because they don’t have the basic knowledge to understand what this administration is doing.
What it was elected to do was change our lives by changing how the government operated. It is doing that. I find it short sighted to think a year is enough time to make any such judgement. As we have seen pretty much all along, the critics are rarely proven right in the end.
Do I agree with Compass? It was obvious to me a long time ago the more business paid their employees would the spend and would be for the betterment of business. Once again, you need a lot of business’ to do the same thing. Over 10 years ago, maybe longer, I was reading 30% unemployment by 2030 due to AI. The date maybe a little off but the prediction is good. Trump is trying something new. Whether or not it works will be seen. The Dems will raise taxes, allow real corruption, I’ve yet to see any figures on Trump’s supposed corruption, and the rich will eventually leave. Where are we then. I’m more than willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. Correcting decades of government mismanagement doesn’t happen over night.
What about Block firing 40% of workers? Beginning of the Citrini paradigm?
Did ms Lowrey think that other Americans did not value work? 😑
I read almost all the way through the Citrini article and found all of it to be believable and compelling but not that concerning. While it's true that we are a services economy and the vast majority of the spending is on houses/cars/renovations/vacations/private schools by the 20%, they can learn to do something productive I'm sure.
Maybe the lowering of standards for the top quintile will be the impetus for a real social safety net, or a wage for everyone high enough to buy a modest house and go to the doctor.
Did people really think we could sell each other haircuts in perpetuity? Eventually you have to make things.
And therefore we need to get done with the service economy - loads of low-wage jobs that we have to work two or three of to pay the bills. We'll always have retail and related jobs (that can hopefully go back to teenagers and college students at a decent wage), but they shouldn't be our whole economy.
My push back is that the adjustment would be extremely painful and it would decimate blue collar wages too. Who will buy all those services? Is it wise to bet against the elite class who often made straight As in school? If the top 5-15% become electricians, then I expect them to crush that field as they did in every other field.
People with money now pay for others to do the most basic chores many of which they are too stupid to do themselves. "Straight As" is meaningless, Newsome scored 950 on his SATs and wants to be President. Anyone who wants to be an electrician is welcome to try, but they should be content with being a helper until they begin to understand what needs to be done.
"Too stupid to do themselves". This is where I highly, highly disagree and see the blue collar elitism shining in full force. Wealthy people pay for these services because their time is better spent elsewhere and they can afford to do so. If these folks lose their jobs, they will not pay for these services and will learn to fix things themselves. These are people who did very well in school and can understand concepts quickly. It will take time to learn and they will have to go through technician school, but they will do very well when they get out. I think blue collar folks who claim that white collar people are incapable of doing their trade are kidding themselves. They see them as lazy and out of touch, which is true to a certain extent. It is also true that every marathoner, Ironman, cross fitter, and extreme athlete is more likely to hail from wealthy backgrounds. These people are fit and intelligent.
I wonder if the people most concerned about AI have actually worked with AI (as it currently is, not the “way it will be some day”). I’ve been a “knowledge” worker for 30 years. AI is liberating. If we’re honest, a lot of “knowledge” work is a grind. Listening to or reading endless transcripts of customer interviews for market research. Fifteen 165 slide PowerPoint decks to slog through to get a background on a product and its strategy. Stacks of company 10Q and 10Ks to grind through to get a nugget of information. AI takes a lot of that away, or at least compresses the time needed to process all that. What it doesn’t do is replace critical thinking and that’s where my original comment comes in. If people’s think AI will replace critical thinking and strategic decision making then they haven’t worked with AI that much. And it won’t replace CT. Companies that try to do that will get buried by companies that empower their employees with AI to make better, faster decisions, not replace their thinking. But we’ll see. I think we’re at the beginning of a golden age of work. (Cf Milton Friedman on using spoons, shovels or machines to dig ditches)
Any chance the summit will be available to watch?
Jamie Dimon/ beware the bankers!
Yes, the neo con deepstate globalists are the establishment, so true (it became very profitable to be so). A lot of them especially growing up in the 60's hate this too! lol What would Bob Dylan and John Lennon ect. think? establishment lol so funny. They are the mainstream.
Sorry to not know who Micron is, but I guess they're coming to Syracuse to build a plant and...create jobs. So why is a workers' rights group up in arms?
"Americans want a hand up, not a handout—and they aren’t wrong."
Is Annie Lowery's quote true for Europe? Or is it unique to American (or Anglo) culture.
I know from prior studies it's not true for much of Africa, but appears to be accurate in Japan and Korea.