The Neo-Luddites among us

Andrew Moran recently published a good summary of the benefits of automation for the workforce of the past, present, and future. I think most people know these facts intuitively, but there is always a lot of noise and distraction coming from special interest groups who hope you won't notice recognize the truths of economic reality.

The US government has us ever leaning towards socialism with whatever bits and pieces of disconnected truthiness they can gather into a narrative basket. For example, they state how hard it is for a family to live on less than $15/hour, without disclosing that it is precisely their actions that make this impossible in the first place. Years of dollar devaluation have led to dollars being worth pennies. This is the problem that they say they are trying to fix by reducing the value of the dollars you already make even further.

Automation has always been a way to increase productivity, and is naturally a deflationary phenomenon. If you can make 11 widgets for a dollar, when you could only make ten before, you've just increased the value of your dollar. This is the unyielding promise of automation.

Our government and their cronies deploy policies that counteract this natural process. I was stunned when a few years back, the Federal Reserve (a government sponsored enterprise) stated outright that they want to eliminate 2% of each of your dollars' value, on average, every year. This is what they mean when they say they want to target 2% inflation. They are now achieving exactly that with the latest results on inflation. In doing so they limit the ability of people to provide for their families at a lower wage rate.

The surprising thing is this is an overt collusion between government and the banks to induce an extra 2% (or more) tax on everything you buy. Automation, which until now was the one thing you could rely on as a way to improve your life, may not be enough. And that's growing insurance that  the Luddites will soonget another shot at manipulating their victims.