Global Tax Rate

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I do believe in the Cayman's, a P.O. Box is all that is needed...

What you really need is a law that says if you want to do business here your manufacturing and operations must mainly be here if you are doing the lions share of your companies business here. Robots and any other automation will potentially garner a penalty worth 25% of profits. Short of forcing these people to do things here at gunpoint you aren’t gonna get them to come back. It’s too profitable to sit back and let people here suffer while getting everything done cheaply. Never mind the problem of fewer and fewer people affording your stuff or global supply chains being spread so thin that one minor disruption nearly collapses it. These folks are way too shortsighted to see the destruction being wreaked by their business practices.

They do say that 90% or so of the job losses in manufacturing are due to automation. Maybe an outright ban on robots and imported manufactured consumer and finished industrial goods (cars, appliances etc.) is the way to go.

[bmw]

LOL you can't "ban" robots - how do you propose doing so? How do you even go about defining a "robot"?

Between raising the minimum wage, raising corporate taxes, and then banning automation, why would ANY corporation want to do business in the US? You want to spur economic growth? Slash the corporate tax rate to ZERO. The dirty little secret about corporate taxes is that it is the end user who actually pays the vast majority of them as the cost just gets passed on to them via embedded pricing.

I do agree that automation is going to be a major economic problem in the intermediate future, at least as far as widening the gap between the rich and the poor (as the rich who own the automation are going to be making money off of it without having to employ people), and while I don't know what the answer to this is, I do know that making it less attractive to employ real people is NOT the answer.

[zzand]

If you ban robots our auto plants are screwed and they have more than enough issues to do deal with right now.

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If you ban robots our auto plants are screwed and they have more than enough issues to do deal with right now.

So hypothetically if you ban robots (phased out by x date really) and importing cars what do they do? They can’t go offshore and they sure can’t automate. They would be forced to hire people to build them again. It’s not like everyone would stop making cars all of a sudden.

This is a thought exercise before you both have a coronary on me.

[bmw]

Sorry, but your "thought exercise" warranted the response it got. I thought I was pretty easy on you. The mere concept of banning automation and/or robots is pretty much the ultimate slippery slope that would logically lead to the banning of all technology of any kind.

As to things that could be practically done, I stand by eliminating corporate taxes altogether and keeping the minimum wage somewhere lower than $15 and tied directly to annual inflation.

[Bryce]

wage somewhere lower than $15 and tied directly to annual inflation.

The problem with a nationally mandated minimum wage is that it doesn't account for market forces and cost of living in individual communities.

Someone making 15.00 an hour in Manhattan, unless it's a youngster living with parents etc, is going to find it very difficult to live. Someone making 15.00 an hour living in Omer, MI can live quite comfortably while that wage would certainly put a strain on the business located there.

[bmw]

I guess I should have clarified - I'm opposed to a federal minimum wage and believe that each state should set its own (in-part for the reasons you mention). And I'd like to see it tied to inflation so that it is no longer a political issue that politicians can campaign on every 2-4 years.

[zzand]

It pains me to say this but automation properly programmed won't make mistakes that humans make. It won't be hung over, bored or distracted. Vehicles are better made since automation has been added. As for minimum wage I agree, take it out of politicians hands.

[Robert Faygo]

Robots have saved countless human lives, minimizing physical risk and alleviating the mental strain associated with repetitive tasks that don't provide humans with any kind of reward beyond a paycheck. They have become an essential part of manufacturing.

[km1125]

LOL you can't "ban" robots - how do you propose doing so? How do you even go about defining a "robot"?
...

If you did you'd lose 90%+ of the assembly line workers.

I'd also say that even a state-wide minimum wage is pretty absurd. The cost of living in Malone, NY is probably much closer to outstate Michigan than it is to NYC. The only thing common with NYC would be the implications of state-wide sales and employment taxes, which are much more easily controlled and could be geographically specific.

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So then we have to provide alternative skills through education and job training right? Because since automation 85-90% of the job losses in Manufacturing and you are all saying we can’t get rid of it we’ll have to train these people to do something else right?

That’s the thing I don’t understand, you guys are Trump supporters, his signature issue is bringing jobs back here... but if I build a factory here I’m gonna automate it from the get go... but they are also against the training. Help me out here. You can’t simultaneously admit the jobs won’t return and automation is ok while supporting a guy who owes his political career to saying the jobs will come back and it’ll be just the way it was... a tad disjointed at the very least...

[km1125]

"We" shouldn't have to train anybody. If YOU want a better job, how about YOU take the responsibility to improve your skills??

Don't wait till the last minute either!! That process can start (and should be taught) when you begin to talk and read!!!

[zzand]

Why is your go to, the government has to provide? If people want training or education it is there but why should the government pay for it?

[Robert Faygo]

No love for Trump here. Just someone that has roots in manufacturing facilities before and after automation really took hold. The difference between the Uniroyal tire factory on Jefferson and a Michelin tire factory in South Carolina due to automation was astounding for workers.

People that lived with carbon black as a skin layer in Detroit were instead people that were electricians and techs in Greenville.

The companies didn't train them, colleges and trade schools did.

There's no way you bring back the same jobs that left, that's not reality. But having places for people to go to work, albeit doing different things, can be real.

It starts with K-14 education. Getting people an associates degree "for free" (yeah, I know), is hvge.

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Why is your go to, the government has to provide? If people want training or education it is there but why should the government pay for it?

I suppose the minimum wage jobs will pay for it? Then when they get their degree they can move on up? That boat does a lot of things but floating isn’t one of them.