| > Given the unit economics, the cost of development has no correlation with the end price consumers pay, so it's irrelevant. It's completely relevant! It's basic accounting! Money in, money out. The money had to come from somewhere. And that somewhere was consumers. Higher R&D expenditures can only be financed by more consumer spend. > No significant technological change has been withheld, especially in the current world. It's not witholding it, it's just taxing it. (PS. A robot taking your job is worse for both other workers and the country than an immigrant taking your job. Because the immigrant pays taxes. The robot does not.) > This is ridiculous pilpul to refuse to acknowledge that the labor market has a supply and demand, with salaries as a clearing price. Add more migrant workers, and the salary decreases at the expense of the local ones. I'm not refusing to acknowledge it. I very much acknowledge it, in every one of my posts - more supply of labour increases productivity, and reduces consumer cost. You, however, are refusing to acknowledge it. Because you somehow think that robots aren't flooding the market with an oversupply of labour. Look at your nearest shipping port. A handful of dockworkers are doing the job that took thousands of hands in the past, because of automation. The same thing is happening with AI, today. |
You are sliding into irrelevancy, having more H1bs won't benefit consumers as, as I have stated before the marginal cost is zero and the price is set to the level that maximises revenue, since it maximizes profit at the same time. If you don't understand what I mean, read a introductory book on microeconomics.
> Because the immigrant pays taxes. The robot does not.
Companies owning robots pay taxes, and a robot doing a physical job decreases marginal cost, which does in this case benefit the consumer. And it's amusing how left-wing activists only care about "tax" - culture, homogeneity, ethnicity, and so on, do not seem to exist in their mind. You can see the clear path toward communism.
Robots are not perfect replacements for humans, so they are a different issue than immigration. And more supply of labor doesn't increase productivity, this is plainly false. Capital increases productivity. More supply of labor decreases the average wage.
Just open an microecon book.