2050
Needing a new shirt? Pair of pants? Sports jacket? Suit? Log on, get your body profiled, if you haven’t recently; chose material. Screen shows what you would look like in the item while you make changes if any. Place the order and item shows up at your door in 7 days; still untouched by human hands. Prêt à porter? Même chose.
Could fly to Albuquerque to see your, or to Amsterdam to your spouses’, mom and dad. Or, you could avoid the old hassle of the airport, of being sardined and fleeced; the long since strengst verboten spewing of carbon dioxide, and visit with them on your big monitor from the comfort of your living room, and they with you from theirs. Dine or watch a movie together. Every night if you are of a mind. All for the price of a Zoom, Amazon, Google, Cisco, Verizon, AT&T, Skype, … call.
How do you pay for these things in 2050? With the money earned from your job at the virtual psychiatric clinic, and from your spouse’s job as a web tech at the New US Postal Service, of course.
Your kids started school at three with full psychiatric and pediatric care. Everyone gets free healthcare. Mental, visual, dental, … the works, for sure. Everyone has housing and retirement benefits.
It’s the new economy, finally! Factories have been fully automated for years now. There is a well paid management/technical team on-site or on-line, of course. Capitalists still get to capitalist to their hearts’ content, if capitalist they must. But, capitalism doesn’t pay well these days. People finally deprogrammed. Nowadays, and for a long time now, the buying of politicians and supreme court justices is forbidden by law; with the law being strictly enforced. Since the changes in the law and politics, most of the return on investment goes to the service sector these days; goes to pay the wages/salaries of folks like yourselves for the work you do. Everyone gets very good service in the new economy. Healthcare, education, recreation, … ; jeden dinge.
Manufacturing is kept close to consumption these days; no more schlepping goods half way around the world; even a few hundred miles is rare. Turns out; distance was the biggest greenhouse gas contributor of all.
None more deserving than the capitalists and the airlines.
Yes! as Bruce Greenwald would say, manufacturers profit margin decreases but local service profit margin increases. yes, he goes on to say that this process will leave the Chinese manufacturing economy behind.tell me something! did Bruce once say, “the inflation is not coming from the excess liquidity but instead it is coming from the fact that when the government starts f****** with you, you raise your prices?no! his wife won’t let him use the F-word. on the other hand, he let us know exactly what was going on.or did PK once say that because of the liquidity trap the government is really not getting much inflation from all their crowding out.it doesn’t matter. the point is that we going to get inflation in the short run and lots of it. it is not, however coming from Congress buying up other people’s votes with other people’s money. instead it is coming from the fact that the Democrats are going in full force what’s regulation and confiscation.this concept is subtle but important.
“goes to pay the wages/salaries of folks like yourselves for the work you do”
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Never happen — not by 2175, not in a million years — without recasting the labor market and the political forum with the return of labor unions.
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Recast overnight — bonus: return Obama/Trump voter to the Democratic fold; at once, even before we restore the unions:
* https://onlabor.org/why-not-hold-union-representation-elections-on-a-regular-schedule/