OT: Momentum Machines Food Prep Robot

restaurant

eliminates most

etc.

Sheesh, not even a link.

?-)

latory compliance, taxes, etc.

Google is your friend.

So much for hamburger-flipping as a career choice ...

Low paid jobs do get automated out of the market. Thatcher famously complai ned about the low productivity of UK workers, vis-a-vis their German counte rparts, until some academic re-ran the figures, controlling for capital inv estment per worker, which showed that UK workers were more productive where the capital investment was the same.

In fact, UK management was more investment-averse so they only spent money on production machinery where it really paid off, so there was no real diff erence.

Germany famously spends more on training and retraining it's workers than does the UK, and has done so since before there was much production automat ion, which may be one explanation of why the Germans were more willing to i nvest in automating production.

Having more engineers than accounts in management may be another.

te:

gulatory compliance, taxes, etc.

ained about the low productivity of UK workers, vis-a-vis their German coun terparts, until some academic re-ran the figures, controlling for capital i nvestment per worker, which showed that UK workers were more productive whe re the capital investment was the same.

y on production machinery where it really paid off, so there was no real di fference.

n does the UK, and has done so since before there was much production autom ation, which may be one explanation of why the Germans were more willing to invest in automating production.

The idea here is that raising the minimum wage throws low wage workers out of jobs, since, basically, politicians can't mandate the economy, as good as i t sounds to some voters. A relevant comment is by Thomas Sowell, who points out that many, if not mo st, low wage workers graduate to higher paid jobs. The mandates and laws with unexpected consequences include Affordable Care Act, raising the minimum wage, and general labor regulations. It's a no-brainer to get a robot, since that gets the government's nose out of your business. jb

Great! If those workers aren't needed, then why hire them in the first place? I don't know why it takes a minimum wage increase to make management realize they could get by without them.

Sorry about all the typos......

We are talking economics here. As I see it, there is a factor of uncertainty which is stronger than the simple quantitative difference in salaries. Sure, I agree with you, a change from 8 to 11 bucks an hour won't break the bank.

But there is a huge hidden over head to government supervision. First, regulations and laws keep proliferating. We all are guilty of 3 felonies a day. (Thus the title of that book.) Second, there is uncertainty about future laws. Finally, there is the "quirkiness" factor, such as various groups dislike of social statements by CEO's, or lawsuits by minorities, and so forth.

So you say, "So what?" "What is your problem?" Now, consider the risk aspect of money. Suppose you have a million dollars to open restaurants in Tampa. The risks are great - and the investor seeks to minimize those. As an entrepreneur, you try to convince the investor to put the money in. There is a risk of a general recession, hurricanes, etc. But then the question of labor laws comes up. And you have to say to him that he can buy a food robot or he can deal with uncertainty from Uncle Sam. He will go with the robot, generally.

I ran across this factor when I wrote a business plan for a greatly improved cancer diagnostic. It cost 10 million to develop it, and the uncertainty is two-fold. First, it may not work. Second, the FDA regulates diagnostics very

strongly, and you have no control over them. (There is a chance big pharma does, and they sell an older, poorer test.) So you are saying to the investor,

"Oh yes, and there is a 60% chance the FDA will not approve it, after you have paid 150 million to test it." No deal, no test, go home, write poetry.

I grew up in an agricultural area where blacks (African Americans) picked all the produce, particularly beans, corn, etc. Then the racial unrest of the 60's happened, making it look like the farmers were exploiting them. The government got involved. What did the farmers do? They sold out to agribusiness, who then bought automatic picking machines.

I'm an agnostic in all this. Socialism can try to enforce "social justice," but so far socialism just creates poverty. And lets not sa capitalism is 100% good.

jb

ss.

," but so far socialism just creates poverty. And lets not say capitalism is 100% good.

You need to learn a bit more about the different styles of socialism. You a ren't so much agnostic as ignorant. Modern socialism, which essentially emb races the free market, but regulates it enough that it works properly (whic h includes enforcing a certain amount of social justice) isn't producing po verty in Scandinavia and Germany. The Gini-indices in Scandinavia are aroun d 0.25 and in Germany 0.283, which means that income inequality there is be tter than anywhere else - the rest of the advanced industrial world is arou nd 0.30, America excepted where it's a diabolical 0.45, worse than Russia - at 0.403 - and almost as bad as China at 0.47.

German monthly salaries are fine - the country is a about as far away from poverty as you can get in country that pays it's way (as opposed to exploit ing oil reserves or a super-secretive banking system).

There is quite a lot of poverty in the US ...

Communism claims to be socialism, but the main stream socialists threw out the proto-communists back in 1870, correctly predicting that if they got in to power they'd create a worse tyranny than any around at the time.The "lea ding role of the party" was a really bad idea.

I don't feel my burger flipping options to be much threatened. The website is a load of hype and a few 3D models with not a lot of detail. When MacDonalds install one I'll get worried.

I've not yet sampled coffee from an automatic machine that was worth drinking so I'm very dubious about the idea of robot made 'gourmet' burgers.

Michael Kellett

plained about the low productivity of UK workers, vis-a-vis their German co unterparts, until some academic re-ran the figures, controlling for capital investment per worker, which showed that UK workers were more productive w here the capital investment was the same.

ney on production machinery where it really paid off, so there was no real difference.

han does the UK, and has done so since before there was much production aut omation, which may be one explanation of why the Germans were more willing to invest in automating production.

A perfectly reasonable attitude. The same attitude to the horseless carriag e made sense until Henry Ford worked out how to make them relatively cheap ly.

rs.

The espresso machines than you find in every up-market coffee shop automate s most of the process of making coffee, and if you keep them clean and load them with good quality coffee, the product is hard to beat. There was a Sa eco machine in my wife's office that let everybody make themselves really g ood coffee with very little effort. It's replacement (also from Saeco) isn' t anything like as successful.

Using the word " better " in conjunction with the Gini coef. is suspect.

A country with everyone having a very low income , will have a low Gini coef. And there will be no research going on to improve life there.

A country with a high average income , but with a lot of billionaires will have a high Gini coef. And is likely to have a lot of research going on. And a lot of philanthropy.

Afghanistan and Germany have about the same Gini.

Dan

pted > > where it's a diabolical 0.45, worse than Russia - at 0.403 - and a lmost as > > bad as China at 0.47.

ef.

If such a country existed, it would have a low Gini coefficient. In practic e, some people always turn out to be capable of extracting an income from t heir environment that supports them in comfort, lets them feed and educate their children adequately and lets them incalcuate their children with the skills that let those children grow up into people with the skills and the contacts to do the same.

If such a country existed.

l have a high Gini coef. And is likely to have a lot of research going on. And a lot of philanthropy.

You may imagine the USA to be such a country. There is a lot of philanthrop y there, but not - it turns out - enough. And a lot of the research going o n in the US is being done by researchers imported from countries where they educate the children of the poor well enough to be able to detect which o f them is likely to grow up into a good researcher.

Such countries graduate enough researchers to be able to send a few of them off to the US for few years to polish their skills, and can live with the risk that a few of that few will stay. Of course American have been known t o like working in Australian and Europe, and have ended up spending their a dult lives there too.

Have roughly the same Gini coefficient listed on the Wikipedia page

The US is a moderately advanced industrial country where they collect the s tatistics required to generate a tolerably reliable estimate of the Gini co efficient. Afghanistan is a country at war, run by a corrupt collection of warlords. The statistics that they publish tell us a good deal more about h ow those warlords want to be perceived than they do about how the Afghan ec onomy works.

It does more than just replace people, it does a better job of prepping the food. The vast majority of line workers in that industry don't value their job so they won't see it as a loss.

snip

Then there are the Libertarians of the Austrian School of Economics. The main exponents include Frederic Hayek ("The Road to Serfdom" "The Conceit of Socialism") and Milton Friedman, The outspoken Nobel laureate who is on youtube.

Many people think Libertarians are right-wing conservatives, but both of these thought leaders have advocated a guaranteed minimum income for everyone. Everyone gets 20k.

I can't detail the Devil in these programs, but consider this: Perhaps 70-90% of welfare payments never make it out of Washington DC. In other words, the failure of currently constructed Socialism is that it depends on centralized government. ANY organization costs 200% in overhead, and this gets multiplied as the "welfare" money passes through multiple layers of bureaucracy.

And that's the main argument of the Libertarians (and capitalist-oriented economists) against Socialism, "social justics," and other government-run programs to make us "safer and better." The argument of the Austrian School in a nutshell is that big government programs can't anticipate and plan markets the way free market capitalism can. This is exactly the argument Adam Smith made hundreds of years ago.

As Margaret Thatcher famously said, "Capitalism is the worst system except for all the alternatives."

I have a proposal to implement Sloman's gini index: The most successful of you have to put 50 pound weights on each leg, to slow you down, and improve the gini index. Outstanding performers, like Phil Hobbs or John Larkin, will have to wear straight jackets and do their work by holding a soldering iron in their teeth.

We won't ask them before doing this - after all, fair is fair, and their opinions don't matter, as they probably cheated to get their skills in the first place. Thank goodness we are finally making social progress around here! I can see a better world already!

snip

There's also a bouncer robot to eject complainers. :)

At least is *should* be easier to detect if the robot 'spat' in your burger (presumably it'll be a lubricant of some sort?). Might even be healthier ;-)

Chris.

main exponents include Frederic Hayek ("The Road to Serfdom" "The Conceit o f Socialism") and Milton Friedman, The outspoken Nobel laureate who is on youtube.

these thought leaders have advocated a guaranteed minimum income for everyo ne. Everyone gets 20k.

The Austrian School of Economics is one of a number of schools of economics devoted to telling rich people what they want to hear.

is devoted to pointing out what Milton Friedman and the Chicago School just ified in Chile, amongst other places.

-90% of welfare payments never make it out of Washington DC.

Government run health programs typically spend between 2% and 5% of their b udgets on administration. The rest is spent on the people intended to get t he benefit

see page 10. I don't know why you think that 70 to 90% of welfare payments never make it out of Washington DC, but the likeliest explanation is that s ome other right-wing nitwit told you this, and you never bothered to find o ut if there was any evidence to support his claim.

zed

lied

Any organisation that costs 200% in overhead has been designed by criminals to transfer money into their pockets, rather than where it is intended to go. The companies that I've worked for in industry didn't spend anything li ke that much on administration.

economists) against Socialism, "social justics," and other government-run programs to make us "safer and better." The argument of the Austrian School in a nutshell is that big government programs can't anticipate and plan markets the way free market capitalism can. This is exactly the argument A dam Smith made hundreds of years ago.

He also pointed out that merchants were prone to conspire to distort the fr ee market in ways that meant that they made more money as the expense of th e people to whom they were selling.

No modern socialist believes in the centrally planned economy but they all believe in regulating free markets, making sure that the participants in th ese markets genuinely are competing, and anticipating and preventing booms and busts.

The "libertarian" arguments against "socialism" aren't actually aimed at so cialism, but rather against centrally planned communist economies, which ma instream socialism rejected back in the 1870s, with the prophetic objection that it would lead particularly appalling tyranies.

t for all the alternatives."

Churchill said that about democracy. Thatcher's economic legacy was 14 year s of very slow growth in the UK economy - slower than anybody else's. I was there. Will Hutton - writing in the Guardian at the time - took the attitude that she endorsed Chicago School economics because it justified her right wing l unacies. When it came to dealing with any kind of problem in the economy, the Chicag o School prescription was frequently wrong, as Hutton had a habit of pointi ng out in advance, followed up by an "I told you so" six months later

ove the gini index. Outstanding performers, like Phil Hobbs or John Larki n, will have to wear straight jackets and do their work by holding a solde ring iron in their teeth.

The Gini index isn't mine. It was invented by by the Italian statistician a nd sociologist Corrado Gini and published in his 1912 paper "Variability an

You proposal to implement what you have grossly misunderstand it to be is p lagarised from Kurt Vonnegut. The Gini index just measures the extent of in equality in the economy. Socialists - amongst others - have noticed that if there's too much (and anything over 0.4 in an advanced industrial economy seems to be too much), the economy doesn't work as well as it does with Gin i indices from 0.25 to about 0.32.

There's nothing in socialism about holding back the talented, or minimising the rewards they get for their talents. Germany and Scandinavia aren't sho rt of rich and well-rewarded people. The problem with American inequality i s that it's not the particularly talented and useful who are getting most o f the generous rewards, but the minimally talented top managers who get to sit on one another's remuneration committees, and reward one another with e xtravagant salaries

The Gini coefficients from such places as Afghanistan are of dubious validity - warlords don't pay taxes or file forms. Nor does anybody in the black market. Nor would the chaos of Afghanistan allow for the collection of reliable statistics.

Actually, they have not done a census in a very long time, and it's unclear just what the population of Afghanistan is (this is an issue in deciding just how fraudulent the recent presidential election was - can't tell if there are more votes than people, as many suspect).

Very few countries in the world publish reliable statistics of any kind. The only countries one can sort-of trust are western democracies.

So, the Gini coefficient is more of theoretical than practical importance.

Joe Gwinn

plagarised from Kurt Vonnegut. The Gini index just measures the extent of inequality in the economy. Socialists - amongst others - have noticed that if there's too much (and anything over 0.4 in an advanced industrial econom y seems to be too much), the economy doesn't work as well as it does with G ini indices from 0.25 to about 0.32.

And yet the U.S. economy is doing better than the economy in Europe.

Dan

is plagarised from Kurt Vonnegut. The Gini index just measures the extent of inequality in the economy. Socialists - amongst others - have noticed th at if there's too much (and anything over 0.4 in an advanced industrial eco nomy seems to be too much), the economy doesn't work as well as it does wit h Gini indices from 0.25 to about 0.32.

On what measure? Germany leads the world on net exports

and when I last looked was exporting more than the US with about a quarter of the population - and was not far behind China which has almost sixty tim es as many people as Germany and pays them a lot less.

US median income is higher - at $29,056 versus the German $24,426 - but Ger man health care is at least as good, cheaper and universal, so this is prob ably bad accounting rather than any kind of real US superiority.

The quality of life index

puts all the Scandinavian countries ahead of the US - from Norway at 8.051 to Finland at 7.618, they all beat the US at 7.615 - and Germany isn't far behind at 7.48. I'd trust that number better if Ireland wasn't at the top o f the list at 8.333.

I do not have a phd. , but I always thought Germany was part of Europe, not all of Europe.

Dan