Ohio miners forced to attend Romney rally without pay...

[kandrathe]

All quite beside the point. Do you have any evidence or theory to defend the central argument, that as incomes rise, people will simply become unemployed, rather than shifting their labour to other sectors? That real prices are rising, not falling? Which is the equivalent of saying people are getting poorer and poorer, year in and year out? Because this all sounds crazy to me, completely at odds with even the most basic empirical facts about economic growth.

Well sure. First, I will apologize in advance for presenting cheddar for our resident rabid anarcho-marxist. He fails to see that ancient ideological fallacies remain fallacies.

I would disagree in part with what Bolty said, in that yes certain production efficiency has impacted the consumer price. We've not experienced the expected price deflation in response to multiplicative increases in productivity. Our monetary policy precludes the possibility of deflation, and uses productivity as a means of moderating inflation. All the benefits are structured for owners/producers, and not consumers/employees.

Let's look at some historical charts then.

a) Labor participation rate.
b) Savings Rates vs Household debt
c) Inflation Rate
d) Real GDP

In a way, I'm worried that Martin Ford is correct. That the pace of technological change is displacing workers faster than the economy can absorb and reinvent the need for them. I have some issues with the idea that there is a monolithic 1% that dominate the 99%, but essentially the idea is correct that "workers" have not benefited in compensation at the same rate as the GDP has grown (mostly due to increases in productivity).

I think part of the problem is our tradition of an industrial 40 hour work week, and that we must go serve 45 years in the factory from 8-5 M-F, with 3 weeks off per year -- to earn an average living wage. Then, at about 65 you get taken care of until you die.

I don't want to be that bird in the gilded cage, whether that cage be managed by an oligarchy, government, or a collusion of both (through the banking system). To me, this doesn't seem to be freedom. Once I become dependent on the good will of whomever for my sustenance, I lose any hope of free will -- other than to choose to starve, freeze, and die of exposure.

It's not all bleak though. I think that the future will be more like what my cousin does, who scours her local area for collectible "artifacts" that she sells on e-bay. Through the WWW we have been brought the tools to engage in P2P worldwide commerce. It's just us older folks who don't quite get it yet.