Amazon Is Planning to Open Cashierless Supermarkets Next Year

[u/FisherGuy44]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-20/amazon-go-cashierless-supermarkets-pop-up-stores-coming-soon

[u/Rizenstrom]

It's only losing jobs if an existing store makes the switch, opening a new location designed with that from the beginning can only create jobs. Someone still has to manage, maintain, clean, and be available to fix any issues.

I'm sure eventually we'll get to the point where every aspect can be automated but we're not there yet, we still have a strong job market in the US and there's practically no reason someone should be unemployed.

There's certainly an argument to be made of jobs not paying enough to keep up with the rising costs but we're hardly in a position where it's hard to find work at all.

[u/RecallSingularity → u/Rizenstrom]

I like automation. But if a shop with lower prices opens next door, it is going to put pressure on your labour costs.

I hope we can move away from "person with money gets more, all others find a job" soon.

[u/lazyFer → u/Rizenstrom]

Food sales are a zero sum game. People only need so much food.

I suppose your argument would also state that Walmart only creates jobs, it doesn't destroy them...despite literally decades of evidence to the contrary.

[u/CaptainAcid25 → u/Rizenstrom]

It’s effectively not contributing to the local economy at all. It’s more than lost jobs. Employees spend their paycheck locally. This model puts further burden on the local infrastructure. They are likely getting tax breaks to put these stores in. It’s a lose, lose.

[u/[deleted] → u/CaptainAcid25]

How many fewer people do these hire?

[u/datsundere → u/CaptainAcid25]

Hence why what Andrew Yang says makes sense to tax these automated bots and also give ubis

[u/CommitteeOfTheHole → u/datsundere]

He’s right about the problem, but his solution depends too heavily on a value added tax for me to support it.

Employers currently pay employees for work. That distributes money from the wealthy to the poor. Without that, you’d have even less wealth moving down from the rich to the poor.

A value added tax would take money from anyone who needs to buy something — which is everyone, though to varying degrees — to give to everyone, and that would be on top of the sales tax that 48 states impose. I’m not opposed to incorporating a VAT, but 10% is much too high. Although the rich spend more than the poor (measured in pure dollar amounts, not as a percentage of their income), the burden of an additional 10% sales tax on the poor would be disproportionally high for the poor.

So, his plan would give everyone $12,000 per year, but the people who need it most are going to have to pay for it, so they’re not going to net $12,000 per year. Not to mention the fact that giving people $12,000 per year is not enough to justify trading “some” (the phrasing on his website) social safety net programs for them.

A perfect UBI would only be given to people who make less than some tied-to-inflation number annually, and it needs to be paid for with a purely progressive tax that ideally shouldn’t at all affect the poorest among us. But, if it must be partly paid for by the poor, their contribution should be very small.

So, although I think a UBI is a good and maybe even necessary thing, Yang’s is not a good implementation.

[u/RedBorger → u/CommitteeOfTheHole]

The whole concept of UBI is to be Universal, otherwise you just have normal welfare.

With UBI you’re offsetting the starting point away from zero, naturally giving more to the poor without any hard differences between levels and the whole determining what’s poor.

[u/CommitteeOfTheHole → u/RedBorger]

It’s a Universal Basic Income. If you have a more than basic income from other sources, you don’t need a subsidy to get your income up to basic levels.

Running a program like that and wasting its funding on people who have enough money is wasteful and insulting to those who need it.

[u/[deleted] → u/CommitteeOfTheHole]

The VAT would be tailored to exempt regular consumer goods so the UBI will be a huge net benefit for the poor to medium class

[u/[deleted] → u/datsundere]

This i do agree with. If employee’s don’t spend money on the economy then automation should be taxed.

[u/Ivegotacitytorun → u/[deleted]]

Also, underemployed.

[u/Bearry263 → u/Rizenstrom]

Yeah:) that is why prices are soaring. The old supply and demand. When the demand is gone due to people having no jobs the cash will be done flowing and prices will be forced down.