[ExI] keynes vs hayek again, was: RE: 3d printers for sale

spike spike66 at att.net
Sun Aug 26 16:05:13 UTC 2012


>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] 3d printers for sale

On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 5:28 PM, spike wrote:
>>... Got a 3D printer three weeks ago, set it to print a copy of itself...
>
>

>...What happens if a neighbour starts doing the same as you? Do you feed
each others machines into your machines?
Where will it all end?  BillK
_______________________________________________

If he tries that, I will throw him into the feeder for my printer and make
two copies of me, since he is twice my size.  Problem solved.  {8^D

BillK, I want you to read the following and comment, since I respect your
opinion and would like a British point of view.

Thought experiment: take two big industrialized nations that make war stuff,
such as the US and China, have them build an enormous naval fleet to go out
into the middle of the Pacific and fight it out.  With modern automated
controls, there is no reason to endanger actual humans, so make everything
robotic or remote controlled, all the guns, identification friend or foe,
all the communications between ships, everything.  These ships will be
constructed in shipyards all along the US west coast, and will be supplied
by subcontractors everywhere making stuff.  All unemployed people will be
taken in by something somewhere in this supply chain, even if they are
perfectly useless: they can be greeters like Walmart has, who only need to
smile and say good morning to the workers coming in, if they can't do
anything else at all.  In return, there is no more welfare, for there is no
need for it: anyone who wants a job can get one.  It doesn't pay much, but
it beats starvation.  Daycare is available on station, as a benefit, and as
soon as the kids hit about 15, they are given a job after their studies are
done for the day.

Instantly the unemployment rate drops from a stubborn 8% to nada, and the
tax money is flowing like a waterfall, which is good because the cost of all
this is appalling, but hey, the economy is steaming ahead as both countries,
and all the other countries who supply cars and furniture and all the other
stuff, have enormous emerging markets, since everyone is as busy as a hive
of bees on a spring day.  When the ships are all finished, they steam out to
the middle of the sea and blast each other until the whole robo-mess rests
on the bottom of the sea while each side sits at computer monitors on shore,
cheering for their own side.  When the smoke clears, there is nothing to
show for it but a big oil slicks where the robo-fleets once sailed.

So now they start on the next robo-olympics, as all that junk forms a very
expensive artificial reef.  Keynes would comment: This is brilliant.  Hayek
would comment: This is madness.

As the US is facing the expiration of the Bush tax cuts on 1 Jan 2013, we
have an across-the-board budget cut mandated to go with it.  It occurs to me
that we have developed a system that is analogous to the robo-demolition
derby described above: we build all this defense stuff, and eventually we
evolved an economic dependence on it, madness or otherwise.  Now the
political news is dominated by commentary on local economies which will
suffer if their piece of the supply line is cut.  Our congressional budget
office is forecasting a recession if the across-the-board cuts go forth.
Yet neither party is making an effort to stop it, and most Americans realize
that painful or not, the alternative is not sustainable.  We are living
waaaay beyond our means, but if all the cuts take place along with the tax
increases, we will be living only a few hundred billion beyond our means, a
fraction of the previous deficit. 

BillK, what would you say of that?  Anders and the various monster brains
present, what say ye?  Hardcore libertarians among us, commentary please?

spike




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