Taxes and Robots

Tags

automation, income, robot, salary, society, tax

Yesterday I read an article in Austrian paper called “Der Standard”. Unfortunately I forgot (or better said, didn’t make a note of) the author, but the topic was quite interesting, worth sharing. It was about taxes.

Author said that at least in Austria, 2/3 of tax income comes from employee related taxes. Those are taxes on your salary, and the costs of employment carried by the employer. Further, author stipulates that because of it, the whole system may soon crash. And I agree.

First reason for that is number of workers – that goes down. All over. Second is that societies are getting older, and we need more if we are to respect our social obligations (even if only in form of retirement funds). Socially oriented countries, such as Austria, have a major problem with it which they try to fix with ever growing retirement age and some such not really popular moves. Will this help? I don’t think so.

One of the major issues is automation. Live people are being replaced by robots of one form or the other, from automated order screens at McDonalds, to actual robots at the factory floor. Those guys don’t pay taxes and humans which have been replaced don’t pay anything either. Quite the opposite, now we (the guys which still have some job) have to cover them too.

Is there a solution? Author proposed a bigger consumer tax, such as VAT. I disagree – in order to consume, you have to work too. If there is lees people with disposable income, plus greater poverty in society, raising VAT will not help, it may have opposite effect. Thisgs will get too expensive to buy. And if we will not buy, there will be no tax income.

Do I have a solution? Yes, although you will think that this is an idea to stop technological growth. It isn’t, although I admit that it may slow it down a bit (what on its own in some cases may be a good idea). My idea is to treat robots at factory floor as humans. Since humans working there did get paid and paid taxes on their salaries, make them pay taxes on same salaries (which they obviously don’t get) too. That way those “guys” would support country coffers. Of course those taxes would come from the factories paying for those robots. The thing is though, they win anyway by not having to pay salaries anymore. The only thing that happens is longer ROI. Not much else – well, maybe except the fact that some robots would no longer be financially valid and humans would stay. That is (at least in interim) not so bad, is it? At least until someone would come up with an idea what to do with all those people which lost their jobs to robots or automation.

Big Data

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big data, consequences, development, era, future, K. Cukier, revolution, society, V. Mayer-Schönberger

I mentioned already that I am reading “Big Data” by V. Mayer-Schönberger and K. Cukier, now that I finished it, I wanted to share some thoughts.

The book itself should be read by all who have at least minimal interest in what surrounds us, or in direction where we, as humanity or as community, are going. The subject of the book is already reality for all, we cannot stop it anymore, same as we could not stop industrial age or progress in general. As in those previous revolutions, this one – although much quieter – will definitely affect us all, one way or the other. Authors try to present us with most of the good and bad things approach to big data may bring, they even try to present us with some legal frameworks to ensure that this new digital god will not become devil. Only time will tell if they will be right.

One thing is for sure: we, as individuals, will need to change with big data. If we will stop invasion of privacy of a single person, we will need to act in thousands, if not nations. If we will want to get cure for our particular genetic disease, or cancer, we will need to share our data with companies having necessary tools to provide us with cure. Right now, since we all don’t really know (or care) what happens with our “data exhaust”, we just create it merrily going about our lives clutching our smart phones or wearing sensors. The era of big data is already here – only we seem not to heave grasped its consequences yet.

What Family means today?

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debt, family, government, history, society

I think that in one of my past posts I have mentioned that I think that part of the blame for today’s financial crisis is demise of so-called old-fashioned values… I have come up with an explanation to what is going today and why, and I set it in the family values. Here is my train of thought:

In the old days, family provided a security cushion to all its members. Brothers could count on brothers to get protection and hand-me-down old clothes. Sisters were protected by family, which made sure that their purity was intact until they were married. Of course as every family everyone was striving towards better life – parents were hard-working to provide for education and housing for their offspring, in exchange for respect and care when the old age came. There was no other way, in order for the family to reach better social standing and have more, goods and riches gathered (if any) needed to be passed on from generation to generation. In other words, many people had to count on the family support when they were hoping for advancement, the same people had to have offspring to guarantee that those same things will be passed on further and that there will be someone who will take care of the old.

Enter credit age and those traditions have died. Now a son does not need his father at all for anything, quite the opposite, elderly parents have become a burden. No one needs to save up for anything – simple credit application guarantees you all things you wish for, even those you cannot really afford. People have kids because they want to, not because they want to preserve their line or pass anything to them. Everyone on its own for its own enjoyment – this is the motto of today.

We all know where this has led us. Less kids, more debt, and there is no one to pay it back. There is no one to care for older people. Governments are busy printing currencies in order to satisfy consumption demand on one side (through credit) and in order to at least preserve validity of economic laws… This will not last for much longer.

Be Average Or Else…

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economy, life, nassim nicholas taleb, organisation, rules, science, society, The Black Swan

Finally I have finished Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book, “Black Swan”. I enjoyed it, I fully agree with ideas presented there, although those are not easy to understand. Some of those ideas are close to my own view at so-called “sciences”, especially managerial or social. I think (and the book seems to confirm my point) that making up rules which organisations built out of humans (such as companies, communities, etc) is a nonsense, people who stubbornly try to use those rules should not be surprised that things don’t work out the way “science” said that they should. Reason is simple: each human being introduces unknown factor and predictions are pointless. We often fall victims to self-confirmation, seeing that in some rare cases rules do work, we are forced to believe that they should work in any case. Not so. In this there is a hidden reason why only experienced managers, who can draw on lessons learned while dealing with people, should be getting the MBA degrees. Theory is just wishful thinking without practical experience and case by case approach. This is one side of the coin.

The other side is that those rules are accepted and approved be people who simply don’t like, or cannot live, in chaos. Therefore we are made to fit them. Any behaviour, even truly normal, but nevertheless not “average”, is being frown upon. Rules don’t deal with extremities at all. For those rules, extreme differences don’t exist. If you behave outside of them, you are being frowned upon. On top of this, majority (all averages) dictate what the markets approve. Hence niche markets are getting smaller and smaller. Pop music forces rock and roll out, cars look pretty much the same and cost the same in their respective segments (offering the same options), companies unite and swallow each other up on the way to duopolies or monopolies in various industries. I don’t know if you agree with me, but I have a feeling that not only rules are made which do not fit reality, but we are made to fit those rules. Double whammy.

The “Black Swan” of course deals with a lot of other, important issues, the one described above is just something which struck me when I was reading that book. We follow people who call themselves “experts” having no right to do so, we base our (financial) future on people who have no idea what they are doing. And at the end, we pay. And accept that too.

I don’t want to be average. I want to be me, unique sample of human species. I don’t want to be forced to like pop music just because someone said that everybody likes it. I don’t want to be forced to save failing banks just because some idiot says it’s for my good. You get the picture. I enjoy being unique me…

Funny How Things Are

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communism, communist regime, European championship, Poland, Polish nation, society

When I was a kid, we were all crazy for the simple company name labels, or advertisement stickers, which you could get only if you wrote to such a company. We were swapping between us lists of addresses of companies where an answer was most likely. We had letter texts prepared, in some sort of English, to be sent to those companies. No one knew really any word of English, those letters just sounded right and anyway, those have proven themselves many times since our friends swore that they got a reply after they sent such a letter. What a joy that was to get Leyland sticker along with a glossy catalogue full of pictures of shiny trucks… Or Conoco sticker, with red letters on white background… Simple things which gave us happiness in the dark ages of communism.

I am Polish and we went a long way from those days. The time which has passed since then was, at least for the history of my country, very rich in events which have touched all of us, not only in Poland, but in Europe and maybe even in the World. Stories which we can tell (and by we I mean mine and earlier generations) are no longer understood by our own youth of today, much less by all the so-called Western civilisation. What we went through, you did not even observe properly. But you have always judged.

Now, look at us. We have conquered communist regime and gave example to many nations around us. We have picked our economy from knees and gave it stable legs, becoming leaders in our own region in those hard times. We are hosting European football championship and we are doing it well. But Western world is much more interested in how many people were arrested during some stupid fights, than in being fair in telling how things really are. Funny enough, if Western countries went through the same transformation as we did, we would maybe not have such a deep crisis today.

I, although living in foreign country, am proud of what we have achieved as a nation. I am aware of our weaknesses. I am also happy that I could live through all the changes, what gave me the experience I can still draw from. And to all, I wish only one thing – for you to be fair.