That means workers are producing more per hour for employers.
Yet wages are flat.
Who captured that extra productivity?
And what changed in the economy to allow them to capture incremental worker productivity instead of the workers themselves?
Source: http://i.imgur.com/5mOQARo.png
Source: https://imgur.com/u6ScCfi
We are getting older, and more broken.
We are currently 'shifting' what we value in life.
If we spend more on doctors, it may be that they provide more value to us.
If we'd rather invest in new surgical procedures over some new kind of social network, well, that's what we want, apparently.
Of course with healthcare it's always more complicated, but it's rational that we spend more on health if that's what society values.
The only place wages are growing (healthcare compensation) is being siphoned away by parasitic for-profit health insurance companies.
Do you use your car insurance to pay for a new air freshener? Do you use your home owner's insurance to get a new throw rug? Of course not.
Yet, we are using insurance to pay for things like birth control and penis pills. We don't use our car insurance to cover a tune-up or inspection, but we expect our health insurance to cover our check-ups.
Stop mandating that the insurance companies cover everything and pay for regular health care out of pocket.
Or, you know, go with single payer - which is what I'd suggest. But, expecting insurance to cover regular care just means it is one more avenue where an intermediary is profiting without adding real benefit. Insurance is for when things go wrong, not for regular care.
Really, though, I'd strongly suggest single payer.
No.
I completely disagree.
The stats on 'bad outcomes' relate to 'life expectancy' etc. - but those are only indirectly related to healthcare.
If you have cancer - and could be anywhere in the world - it would be under an American health-insurer.
America has the #1 healtchare system in the world for those who are covered. For those who are not - it's terrible, obviously. And, it's crazy expensive as you pointed out.
But 'direct outcomes' are not bad - they're good.
Due to all the 'inner city violence' + Medics coming back from the war - American emergency rooms have become goddam miracle centres.
The number of people dying from gun wounds has dropped dramatically due to the amazing ability of the American healthcare system (perverse reasoning, but hey).
It's a crazy situation, but it's not irrational that 'cutting edge healthcare' is 2x expensive as 'socialized healthcare' that we receive here in Canada. 10% improvement (for those covered) at 2x the cost seems about right actually.
Take total US GDP in 1950 and divide by total compensation (wages plus benefits) for all private-sector workers. About 50% of GDP went to workers, and 50% went to owners of capital.
That 50% ratio stayed constant until about 1975.
The ratio has steadily deteriorated until today, where workers now keep 43% and capital keeps 57%. That 14% is a massive, tectonic shift and shows no signs of reversing.
Why wouldn't those workers capture the benefits of the robots in the same ratio that workers capture the benefits of other things they produce?
This is what communism talks about with "seizing the means of production" - without capital, the workers cannot exercise their design & production skills, and thus the wealth they generate is split between them and the capital investor.
Workers compete with themselves to design breakthrough machines or improve their work productivity in order to generate more wealth; capital investors naturally get exponential gains by continuing to reinvest in a growing economy.
In that sense, there should be a steady increase in the capital/worker ratio of GDP ever since the industrial revolution.
(Edit: Why are my comments receiving instant downvotes within less than a minute of posting? Who exactly is doing this, without explanation, and more importantly why?)
I'm sure I've read that dang has said that downvotes shouldn't be used to mark opinions you disagree with - yet here we are. I would really appreciate explanations, surely this is not above those people who have 500 karma - like I am, they are entrusted with extra powers over the content on the website; perhaps if they behave in such a way antithetical to the idea of Hacker News (that of sharing strangely interesting ideas and perspectives) perhaps they should not have that ability.
I didn't say that. People think this, mainly because they hear it from other people who think this, but it has never been the policy on HN.
Marx's observations were mostly sound, and I think, not inconsistent with Adam Smith. It's his solutions that were crazy-balls.
Ultimately, all things being equal, tech that makes companies more efficient will drop employment and wages. 'All things' are never equal though :).
We should consider the fact that while modern countries are going anywhere fast - 100's of millions of people are coming out of abject poverty. That's often overlooked.
I very much agree. People on my side of the political spectrum often dismiss how much good capitalism has done to people, especially those in improvished countries, though it's important to note that even despite these improvements, Marx campaigned for Socialism - not beacuse the improvements were useless, but because there is more to a mode of production than lifting people out of poverty - we must also question the social, psychological and moral aspects of the way in which people live; while nobody disagrees that the standard of living has increased, whether the quality of life is the best that it can be, or that it should be, is a very hot topic and the Frankfurt School in particular hads taken it upon itself to examine this.
I made a comment[0] yesterday relating my problems with capitalism, and partly they are the reason I am a Socialist; perhaps we may find some agreement in the diagnoses of the problems but not the solutions, being as "crazy-ball" as you put them.