We’re all richer, in many ways, than the Sun King. But no one puffs out his chest and struts down the street, thinking of how much richer he is than Louis 14th.
Somebody is going to lose in this reckoning, and as always it will be the middle class. The problem with AI is that it does not pay into SS or Medicare. It is the perfect scapegoat to how these programs end and we end up on the government tit with fake money swirling down a toilet bowl. Shameful and Sad. But don't worry, they will keep deducting it from the paychecks of the working middle class in one form or another long after it is gone. That is if we still have paychecks!
At 74, I know I'm going to be the one to take it in all the usual places, because that's the way it's been in my life. It's liberating in a way; I know with certainty it's going to happen, and that I will be one of the victims, so I no longer worry about it. Besides, the game clock may run out, before the shafting can come around. Best always. PM
Oh Paul, very sad but true. Your years on this earth have educated you well to the realities of this life. I am five years ahead of you and I wonder if I will escape the "trap" set before us. Time will tell!
Love the game clock metaphor. My game clock is 7 years faster than yours, but it continues to support racquetball twice per week as it has for the last 45 years. Keep on gaming!
Watch energy production. Real wealth is dependent on energy. Germany has demonstrated this very well with the ongoing loss of industrial capacity since turning off their nuclear plants and the loss of gas from Nordstream.
The USA is back to increasing energy production, although, as Mr. Bonner shows, there is the observation that the circular scheme involving AI suppliers still requires output, AND customers who can afford the product.
US and western energy production (and pollution) has been offshored to China for thirty years. We may have time before the clock runs out, we are the same vintage. The real concern is for the children and grandchildren who are being squeezed out of the middle class like the dregs from a toothpaste tube.
Good analysis! I don't buy the "I'm sorry for my Grandkids" idea. Some of my kids, and most of their peers, voted for and pursued their own "vision" of "fairness", "equality", and "equity", and all the other straw men the something-for-nothing socialist crowd holds up. As Liberace used to say to the old ladies in his audience while flashing his jewelry: "You like it? You paid for it." Best always. PM
With only 6 years potentially left of SS, this may be its death knell.
Last night we were trying to order from our favorite restaurant. The old phone message system was gone. Replaced by AI. We live in the same building as the restaurant, which by default wants all its customers to use a local delivery system (Skip) to do pickups and deliveries. We have bypassed that system in the past, by calling the restaurant's number and hitting zero to talk to someone there who then takes our order. Instead of paying a middle man (Skip) to do the same. We then go downstairs and pick up the order when its ready. Try as we might, we couldn't get thru to a human. We gave up and hung up. And went downstairs to order.
I can see in the future, a robot denying us at the door with the pickup order. And sending us home. To use the middle man.
At which point, we'll be forced (egad) to learn to cook. :)
Well, I appreciate both your responses. As they say, it's not over until it's over. Another great singer/poet William Prince sings: I wanna live to the second last day that my children do, Selfishly, so I can see them through, all that they've become, That's all I'll ever become.
Well Bill, there you have it, apparently the economy is doing very well.
Except for the people.
The fellow building a greenhouse using stones from an old farmhouse and recycled windows, that’s very economical, although he’s putting an expensive glass roof on it, which seems reasonable. You wouldn’t want your tomatoes living beneath cheap plastic, they might lose respect for you.
While he’s building this greenhouse, he’s worried about the American dollar. Apparently it’s been fake since 1971.
That’s quite a long time to keep a counterfeit operation going. After fifty-five years, you’d think somebody would’ve noticed by now, especially the people printing them.
The stock market’s worth sixty trillion dollars, corporate profits are exploding, artificial intelligence is revolutionizing everything, and the average working stiff is standing in a grocery store trying to decide whether he can afford both eggs AND toilet paper!
SIXTY TRILLION DOLLARS!
I personally don’t have sixty trillion dollars. In fact, I’m a little short. By approximately sixty trillion dollars.
You know what sixty trillion dollars is?
It’s a number so large that nobody understands it, which makes it absolutely PERFECT for Wall Street!Because that’s the secret of modern finance! You take something nobody understands, give it a complicated name, hire a consultant to explain why it’s worth more than yesterday, and sell it to another jack*ss who understands it even less!
That’s not investing, that’s musical chairs for people with offshore bank accounts! And here’s the beautiful part, the companies are making record profits selling computer chips to other companies building computers that will eventually replace the employees who were supposed to buy the products those companies were making!
BRILLIANT! We’ve invented an economy where the machines manufacture the products, the machines transport the products, the machines advertise the products, and the machines eventually have to buy the doggone products because all the customers are unemployed!
Wall Street calls this efficiency, “Efficiency” another beautiful word. It means firing twelve thousand employees, giving the CEO a forty-million-dollar bonus, and explaining to the remaining workers that the company is experiencing a challenging period of strategic transformation! They’ll fire the entire workforce and replace them with a computer that occasionally tells people to glue cheese to their pizza!
And now they’re also talking about self-driving trucks! Artificial intelligence is going to replace truck drivers. Three and a half million of them. That’s a lot of truck drivers.
I once knew a truck driver, a nice fellow who drove a truck. You could always tell when he was working, because the truck wasn’t there.
Anyway, now they’re making trucks that drive themselves, which is remarkable, because I used to own a car that wouldn’t start unless you hit the dashboard with a shoe. And now they’re telling me a truck can drive itself across Nebraska without a person being inside.
I suppose that’s progress, although…I do wonder what happens when the truck gets lonely.
The economists say these trucks will make everything cheaper, sounds logical, except the truck drivers won’t have jobs anymore, but they’ll have cheaper groceries, but no money.
That’s an interesting combination, it’s rather like getting a fifty-percent discount on a yacht, while you’re drowning.
Imagine telling a truck driver who’s spent thirty years hauling groceries across America that his job has been eliminated because a computer can now drive a truck without needing coffee, health insurance, or a bathroom break!He can spend his retirement watching an autonomous truck deliver groceries he can’t afford.
But don’t worry, the economists also say increased productivity makes everybody richer. EVERYBODY!
Well….except the people who got fired.
And the people whose wages aren’t keeping up.
And the people who can’t pay their debts.
And the people waiting for Social Security.
But OTHER THAN THOSE PEOPLE, everything is sweet meat pies!
The government says Social Security might run short of money. You’ve spent decades collecting retirement contributions, borrowing against the future, and promising everybody the system will be there when they need it, but now the accountants are standing around an empty vault looking like three Wall Street fat cats arguing over who stole the money, while each one quietly invoices the other two for financial advisory services!
And what’s the solution?
Raise taxes!
Cut benefits!
Raise the retirement age!
Hell, why not raise the retirement age to 140?!
Problem solved!
Nobody retires, nobody collects, and the government saves a fortune! They’ll call it the American Longevity and Fiscal Responsibility Act. And when you die at seventy-three, they’ll send your family a congratulatory letter thanking you for your contribution to national solvency!
Sam Altman of OpenAI, and his ex-employees, Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei, the founders of Anthropic (and Claude), are featured in the CEO section of the movie. I won't ruin the movie with any spoilers other than, it tells us why this race is happening. And why no one wants to pump the brakes. The reason why they are willing to take "that chance" with a potential catastrophe or existential threat being on the line.
I perceive from todays essay we live in a ever growing world of smoke and mirrors, with an ever growing cloud of smoke. With eight days to go before this election scam is over (for another two years), and we can get rid of these damn commercial's, and can get back to the normal fantasy world we live in. My only question now, how long before the French movie comes to America?
Anybody remember the old group The Ink Spots? They had a song, very popular in the day, "I don't want to set the world on fire; I just want to start a flame in your heart."
Yes, it's true, in a rosy scenario of increased productivity, revenues, and profits, all of us gain ("A rising tide lifts all boats", as President Kennedy once said). I'm not going to be "Forbes rich" (setting the world on fire), but I would certainly welcome a 10-percent gain in personal net (starting a flame in someone's heart, maybe MINE). As President Clinton might say, "It's all good." Best always. PM
I don't know if this is classic value-add or the primary benefit of my many long years of association, but Bill's vision (and description) when it comes to construction projects is not only insightful and entertaining, but it is an actual thought-provoker and informative when evaluating my own situation. Recall, if you can, the construction project on one of the old houses onto which Bill added a conservatory (essentially an oversize A-frame, or similar, window of graceful design, as opposed to a school of music, which, of course, would be an excellent, if impractical, addition as well). Since then, I have been evaluating my own domicile with an eye toward how best to incorporate a conservatory. We are still in the exploratory phase, and may remain there for some time yet. With luck we may get both: a place through which to enjoy more light AND a place for music instruction and performance. Best always. PM
Somebody is going to lose in this reckoning, and as always it will be the middle class. The problem with AI is that it does not pay into SS or Medicare. It is the perfect scapegoat to how these programs end and we end up on the government tit with fake money swirling down a toilet bowl. Shameful and Sad. But don't worry, they will keep deducting it from the paychecks of the working middle class in one form or another long after it is gone. That is if we still have paychecks!
At 74, I know I'm going to be the one to take it in all the usual places, because that's the way it's been in my life. It's liberating in a way; I know with certainty it's going to happen, and that I will be one of the victims, so I no longer worry about it. Besides, the game clock may run out, before the shafting can come around. Best always. PM
Oh Paul, very sad but true. Your years on this earth have educated you well to the realities of this life. I am five years ahead of you and I wonder if I will escape the "trap" set before us. Time will tell!
Jim Marshall
Love the game clock metaphor. My game clock is 7 years faster than yours, but it continues to support racquetball twice per week as it has for the last 45 years. Keep on gaming!
Watch energy production. Real wealth is dependent on energy. Germany has demonstrated this very well with the ongoing loss of industrial capacity since turning off their nuclear plants and the loss of gas from Nordstream.
The USA is back to increasing energy production, although, as Mr. Bonner shows, there is the observation that the circular scheme involving AI suppliers still requires output, AND customers who can afford the product.
US and western energy production (and pollution) has been offshored to China for thirty years. We may have time before the clock runs out, we are the same vintage. The real concern is for the children and grandchildren who are being squeezed out of the middle class like the dregs from a toothpaste tube.
Good analysis! I don't buy the "I'm sorry for my Grandkids" idea. Some of my kids, and most of their peers, voted for and pursued their own "vision" of "fairness", "equality", and "equity", and all the other straw men the something-for-nothing socialist crowd holds up. As Liberace used to say to the old ladies in his audience while flashing his jewelry: "You like it? You paid for it." Best always. PM
With only 6 years potentially left of SS, this may be its death knell.
Last night we were trying to order from our favorite restaurant. The old phone message system was gone. Replaced by AI. We live in the same building as the restaurant, which by default wants all its customers to use a local delivery system (Skip) to do pickups and deliveries. We have bypassed that system in the past, by calling the restaurant's number and hitting zero to talk to someone there who then takes our order. Instead of paying a middle man (Skip) to do the same. We then go downstairs and pick up the order when its ready. Try as we might, we couldn't get thru to a human. We gave up and hung up. And went downstairs to order.
I can see in the future, a robot denying us at the door with the pickup order. And sending us home. To use the middle man.
At which point, we'll be forced (egad) to learn to cook. :)
Well, I appreciate both your responses. As they say, it's not over until it's over. Another great singer/poet William Prince sings: I wanna live to the second last day that my children do, Selfishly, so I can see them through, all that they've become, That's all I'll ever become.
It's difficult: we have to let go, and they have to take responsibility. Best always. PM
Exactly
When your customers run out of money or credit your company profits will drop
Irony: some customers blame you when they run out of money or credit. They get mad when you ask them to pay. Best always. PM
Well Bill, there you have it, apparently the economy is doing very well.
Except for the people.
The fellow building a greenhouse using stones from an old farmhouse and recycled windows, that’s very economical, although he’s putting an expensive glass roof on it, which seems reasonable. You wouldn’t want your tomatoes living beneath cheap plastic, they might lose respect for you.
While he’s building this greenhouse, he’s worried about the American dollar. Apparently it’s been fake since 1971.
That’s quite a long time to keep a counterfeit operation going. After fifty-five years, you’d think somebody would’ve noticed by now, especially the people printing them.
The stock market’s worth sixty trillion dollars, corporate profits are exploding, artificial intelligence is revolutionizing everything, and the average working stiff is standing in a grocery store trying to decide whether he can afford both eggs AND toilet paper!
SIXTY TRILLION DOLLARS!
I personally don’t have sixty trillion dollars. In fact, I’m a little short. By approximately sixty trillion dollars.
You know what sixty trillion dollars is?
It’s a number so large that nobody understands it, which makes it absolutely PERFECT for Wall Street!Because that’s the secret of modern finance! You take something nobody understands, give it a complicated name, hire a consultant to explain why it’s worth more than yesterday, and sell it to another jack*ss who understands it even less!
That’s not investing, that’s musical chairs for people with offshore bank accounts! And here’s the beautiful part, the companies are making record profits selling computer chips to other companies building computers that will eventually replace the employees who were supposed to buy the products those companies were making!
BRILLIANT! We’ve invented an economy where the machines manufacture the products, the machines transport the products, the machines advertise the products, and the machines eventually have to buy the doggone products because all the customers are unemployed!
Wall Street calls this efficiency, “Efficiency” another beautiful word. It means firing twelve thousand employees, giving the CEO a forty-million-dollar bonus, and explaining to the remaining workers that the company is experiencing a challenging period of strategic transformation! They’ll fire the entire workforce and replace them with a computer that occasionally tells people to glue cheese to their pizza!
And now they’re also talking about self-driving trucks! Artificial intelligence is going to replace truck drivers. Three and a half million of them. That’s a lot of truck drivers.
I once knew a truck driver, a nice fellow who drove a truck. You could always tell when he was working, because the truck wasn’t there.
Anyway, now they’re making trucks that drive themselves, which is remarkable, because I used to own a car that wouldn’t start unless you hit the dashboard with a shoe. And now they’re telling me a truck can drive itself across Nebraska without a person being inside.
I suppose that’s progress, although…I do wonder what happens when the truck gets lonely.
The economists say these trucks will make everything cheaper, sounds logical, except the truck drivers won’t have jobs anymore, but they’ll have cheaper groceries, but no money.
That’s an interesting combination, it’s rather like getting a fifty-percent discount on a yacht, while you’re drowning.
Imagine telling a truck driver who’s spent thirty years hauling groceries across America that his job has been eliminated because a computer can now drive a truck without needing coffee, health insurance, or a bathroom break!He can spend his retirement watching an autonomous truck deliver groceries he can’t afford.
But don’t worry, the economists also say increased productivity makes everybody richer. EVERYBODY!
Well….except the people who got fired.
And the people whose wages aren’t keeping up.
And the people who can’t pay their debts.
And the people waiting for Social Security.
But OTHER THAN THOSE PEOPLE, everything is sweet meat pies!
The government says Social Security might run short of money. You’ve spent decades collecting retirement contributions, borrowing against the future, and promising everybody the system will be there when they need it, but now the accountants are standing around an empty vault looking like three Wall Street fat cats arguing over who stole the money, while each one quietly invoices the other two for financial advisory services!
And what’s the solution?
Raise taxes!
Cut benefits!
Raise the retirement age!
Hell, why not raise the retirement age to 140?!
Problem solved!
Nobody retires, nobody collects, and the government saves a fortune! They’ll call it the American Longevity and Fiscal Responsibility Act. And when you die at seventy-three, they’ll send your family a congratulatory letter thanking you for your contribution to national solvency!
"You wouldn’t want your tomatoes living beneath cheap plastic, they might lose respect for you."
I damn near fell off the chair with that one. Many thanks. Best always. PM (still laughing)
"𝘉𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 100 𝘱𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 ‘𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴’ 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 (𝗔𝗻𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗰) 𝘐𝘗𝘖. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘬 𝘰𝘯𝘦 (𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨) 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘺’𝘴 𝘰𝘸𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘶𝘥𝘦’𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘣𝘰𝘹, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸 ‘𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘥𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘰𝘳 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘱 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘭.’ 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘩𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘦𝘴 ‘𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘩𝘪𝘤 𝘰𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘬𝘴’ 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 (𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘰 ‘𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺’ 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘸𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘵𝘺."
A friend turned me onto a film that debuted at Sundance this year. Fabulous film. If you subscribe to Prime, its streaming there. Its called:
"The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist"
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt39150120/
Sam Altman of OpenAI, and his ex-employees, Dario Amodei and Daniela Amodei, the founders of Anthropic (and Claude), are featured in the CEO section of the movie. I won't ruin the movie with any spoilers other than, it tells us why this race is happening. And why no one wants to pump the brakes. The reason why they are willing to take "that chance" with a potential catastrophe or existential threat being on the line.
𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘂𝗹𝗱 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗼𝗻𝗲.
What could possibly go wrong??!!! 😱
I perceive from todays essay we live in a ever growing world of smoke and mirrors, with an ever growing cloud of smoke. With eight days to go before this election scam is over (for another two years), and we can get rid of these damn commercial's, and can get back to the normal fantasy world we live in. My only question now, how long before the French movie comes to America?
Jim Marshall
Anybody remember the old group The Ink Spots? They had a song, very popular in the day, "I don't want to set the world on fire; I just want to start a flame in your heart."
Yes, it's true, in a rosy scenario of increased productivity, revenues, and profits, all of us gain ("A rising tide lifts all boats", as President Kennedy once said). I'm not going to be "Forbes rich" (setting the world on fire), but I would certainly welcome a 10-percent gain in personal net (starting a flame in someone's heart, maybe MINE). As President Clinton might say, "It's all good." Best always. PM
I don't know if this is classic value-add or the primary benefit of my many long years of association, but Bill's vision (and description) when it comes to construction projects is not only insightful and entertaining, but it is an actual thought-provoker and informative when evaluating my own situation. Recall, if you can, the construction project on one of the old houses onto which Bill added a conservatory (essentially an oversize A-frame, or similar, window of graceful design, as opposed to a school of music, which, of course, would be an excellent, if impractical, addition as well). Since then, I have been evaluating my own domicile with an eye toward how best to incorporate a conservatory. We are still in the exploratory phase, and may remain there for some time yet. With luck we may get both: a place through which to enjoy more light AND a place for music instruction and performance. Best always. PM