Not Mentioned in the Presidential Election Coverage/Debates

I rather doubt it, too, Ben.  Unfortunately.  One of the debate moderators tried to get Trump to explain how he'd do that and got word salad in response.  It's not something you can accomplish with a flourish of a pen.

People want to pay low prices for widgets.  Low prices mean low wages.  People here mostly aren't all that happy about low wages.  So companies send those widget jobs to places where people are happy to get those low wages or replace them with automation.  Bringing those jobs back means either forbidding companies to send jobs overseas/replace them with robot workers, or making Americans willing to pay more for widgets.  A bit of an oversimplification, yes, but I think the point holds.

It's like the way people all bemoan the loss of mom and pop businesses in their neighborhood.  But the mom and pops simply can't compete with Amazon on prices and still stay in business, and few are willing to pay the higher prices just to keep those charming shops in business.  

A while back there was a thread in AW's P&CE about the idea of a universal basic income.  Perhaps we can revive that conversation here.

Better watch it, pup. I might start posting new poems just to spite you. And then robo will have to either ban me or start a poetry forum. And if he starts a poetry forum, it might attract poets. And if it attract poets, you'll have to buy sticky traps.

Probably best just to ban me, now that I think of it.

ETA:

I mean, this place is like 1/8 poets already.  And I think robo used to write poetry before he managed to kick the habit.  You want him to start up again?

You're just asking for trouble.

A historical note on basic income, President Nixon considered implementing it for a short time. Writer/promoter Scott Santens links to an article somewhere in his Twitter feed:
twitter.com/scottsantens

I mention this because of a certain irony, what if Trump were the the President who ... The only Silicon Valley celebrity to endorse Trump is:
www.cnet.com/news/peter-thiel-to-enter-trump-inner-circle-as-technology-adviser/

Watch the bastard machines very closely. And keep a close eye on how every word used in every AdWords ad affects hits.

Economics is about allocating scarce resources to satisfy unlimited needs and wants. When somebody tells me that all the world's problems have been solved and nobody has any unsatisfied needs and wants, I'll start worrying about what the humans will do when the robots have taken over the jobs humans are doing today.

Since Og created the lever, putting 4 out of 5 stone-lifters out of business, people have been decrying the soul-sucking power of technology, and claiming Armageddon is just around the corner.

People who worked from sunup to sundown in the elements, regardless of the weather, in hopes of raising enough food to feed themselves and stay clothed and dry, decried the coming of the industrial revolution. The descendants of those same people enjoy the abundances of life so much that obesity has become a major problem.

My guess: there will always be unsatisfied needs and unrealized dreams, and as long as those conditions remain, there will always be new ways for humans to put food on their tables and roofs over their heads.

Far more dangerous to the long-term health of society is the concentration of power in the hands of a smaller and smaller group of people. Because that power allows them to concentrate wealth among themselves and those who support them. Put all that power in the hands of regressive politicians who long for the good old days, who resist every labor-saving and health-creating innovation to preserve the status quo, and the economy will indeed collapse. Leave people to unleash their creativity, and there's no limit to what mankind can achieve.

And a universal income is the surest way to concentrate all that power into even fewer hands, because somebody will have to approve and distribute that income. Those functionaries will become your new lords and masters.

The idea that technology will solve our problems and lift everyone is utopian nonsense. All the time savings and efficiency gains that technology has brought about have never, ever resulted in more free time and more prosperity for the workers whose jobs that technology is now doing - it only increases the amount of output expected of them, or simply puts them out of work. This is one of the weakest and most provably false arguments libertarians consistently make, because we now have a history going back to the Industrial Revolution proving it's completely contrary to reality (and indeed, goes against economic incentives).

The theory now is that robots will eliminate labor jobs, but those will be replaced by "service" and "knowledge" jobs. Well, first of all, that only works in cities, kind of. So everyone displaced by technology has to move to a city. All right. Second, there will be fewer and fewer service jobs that can't be replaced by technology, and even knowledge-sector jobs are being encroached upon. (If actual AI ever comes about, we're totally screwed.)

Yeah, there are problems with universal income, but there are also problems with millions of people for whom there are literally no jobs. I have yet to hear a libertarian solution to this problem that isn't predicated on a Star Trek post-scarcity economy and benevolent Federation.

Of course libertarians don't call for a Federation or a post-scarcity economy. I am saying that your solutions actually working are predicated on one existing. You are extremely optimistic about new technologies "giving people new ways to put food on the table," and for some people, that is certainly true. But the technology that replaces truck drivers, grocery store clerks, and radiologists isn't putting food on their table, and not all of them can just retrain to be "knowledge workers" or take up a craft to sell on Etsy.