On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 6:48 PM, Steve Richfield <[email protected]> wrote: > Remember when it was announced that Apple Computer had more money in the > bank than the U.S. Government?
Who doesn't? The U.S. government is $16 trillion in the hole. But they can print money, so it's not a problem, right? > All it will take is for the economy to start to take off for this money to > come out of the bank and go into investments, whereupon to maintain > equilibrium there MUST be an immediate ~5:1 hyperinflation. I doubt it. Companies that have cash to spend keep it in investments like stocks and bonds. If they sold them all at once, the price of those investments would crash and the money wouldn't be there. Hyperinflation is caused by the government printing too much money. Currently the U.S. borrows 40% of its budget, or 10% of GDP by selling bonds, then prints money (qualitative easing) to buy them back and keep the interest rate near 0. This is convenient because it effectively taxes anyone holding investments in any form valued in dollars at 10% of their savings, and many of them are outside the U.S. where they would not otherwise pay taxes. We can get away with it because all of the other countries are doing the same thing. We should expect that inflation would be 10%, but we observe a lower rate because technology keeps making stuff cheaper. But if you really think it is a problem, then buy gold. >> An unfortunate consequence of a free market is the unequal >> distribution of wealth. > > No, that is an unfortunate consequence of a bribocracy. All that is needed > is to make human labor worth more, e.g. by making it a bit scarce, e.g. by > limiting workweeks to 30 hours. So long as there is a glut of labor, we all > work for nothing. Of course, lobbyists will never let that happen. No it wouldn't. People specialize. Cutting hours 25% would just cut economic output by 25%. There will always be a few percent of the population that is unable or unwilling to work or that lack necessary job skills, and they would remain unemployed. > Things have been on a long gradual downhill slide for the last half century. > I see no changing this trend. I observe no such trend. https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=world%20gdp#!ctype=l&strail=false&bcs=d&nselm=h&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_kd&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=region&ifdim=region&tdim=true&hl=en_US&dl=en&ind=false Other indicators are up too, like life expectancy. >> My suggestion would be to open source Dr. Eliza and build a web >> interface where people can interact with it and add to its knowledge >> base. Maybe it won't be very good at first, but it will improve over >> time. > > I tried that, but NO ONE was interested in participating. You see, people > are interested in THEIR AI project, not someone else's AI project. I see the problem. There is no "AI project" that has any hope of succeeding. > Apparently you don't see, or choose not to see, how sad this situation truly > is. When I got into programming in the 1960s, a typical interview consisted > of them explaining what they wanted, and asking me if I could build it. If I > answered "yes", then I got the job. I lived like a king back then, without > any thought to long-term financial stability in a market that was SO short > of highly skilled personnel. Maybe your job skills have not kept up with technology. It can happen. Blaming the economy isn't going to solve the problem. -- -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
