Goodbye Mr. Roboto

So, this whole robots thingee has led me to scavenge for data. Still haven't found hard numbers with regard to labour hours per unit (automobile or other wise), although the Times article referred to in an earlier post has some speculative numbers for Philips.

I found this posting in my travels.

And the result of that will be a massive drop in consumer spending and consumer confidence. The point is that robots take jobs and incomes but do not act as "end consumers" in the economy. Robots do consume energy and resources but these are inputs to production. Without end consumers to drive the economy, the result will be a deflationary spiral. Many of the robots would be shut down. Imagine production robots used by General Motors. If there are no humans with income and confidence to buy cars, the robots will be shut down.

The quote isn't in the post, but a comment from one Steve T; scroll down to the second comment. I must say, I couldn't have said it better myself. Read through the entire comment. No, I'm not Steve T, but he has to be my lost twin.

What isn't discussed or understood sufficiently is that the "knowledge jobs" that some, including Left Wingnuts, are so enamoured of are disproportionately overhead or purely parasitic, in more pointed words: welfare queen jobs. In the former case, positions labeled management or analyst or administration and the like are explicitly categorized as non-production by economists, because they don't participate in production of output. They're overhead. In the latter case, such as that vampire squid financial services, such positions just syphon real productivity (in the form of moolah) from the economy.

Where we end up: It's the Distribution, Stupid. Without a distribution mechanism capitalism collapses, and sooner than without the robots, since the robotic movement accelerates the income and wealth transfer from the many to the few. Have a nice day. And I'll stop the repetitive robotic typing.