Machines work,we play.Halfway there, stats prove

[oscar111]

This is just a rough calculation, so no snide comments, ok? Politely tell me of any gross errors. If you know of a definitive estimate, pls let us all know.

GDP is about 10 Trillion.
72 million families of four in US.

works out to about $137,000/family. {friends, this is all from memory of when i did this last week, expect some flaws}.

Allow 37,000 for plowback into new factory machines, research on factory methods, and raw materials.

So 100,000/family of four.
TAXES: since all get a hundred thousand, no need for welfare, or pension ss, or medicare or medicaid. Pentagon wants ?350 B? about, .. and gov needs some for hiways, schools, cops and courts. Say a trillion all in all.

To tax away a trillion, taxes would take a seventh, or 14,000. Leaving 86,000. The current average middle class family is used to living on about $50,000.

So we see that presently, with people working and machines also, that the combination is producing nearly twice what the middle class needs.

So it appears that we are almost halfway to utopia. Machines work, people play. At least, democrats would have us gain leisure time from automation. Repubs want automation to create more and more unemployment.

Let us know if you have a more definitive source on how much the machines are producing today. Looks here, like a democratic government could have us work about seven months --- and take off after august 1st. Vacation till January. Thanks to science, and machines. Or is this science fiction?

[klook]

1. Working more, earning less

According to an article on www.ReclaimDemocracy.org, anybody who sees a shangri-la on the horizon for American workers is in La-La Land:

Americans Working More, Earning Less
By Darrell Hutchins and Jeff Milchen
September 3, 2003

"Today Americans work, on average, a month longer each year than 20 years ago. During the last 30 years, work weeks have become shorter, and the number of days of paid leave increased everywhere else in the industrialized world.

"Our poor position is remarkable since the U.S. ranks near the top of the list of developed nations in worker productivity. U.S. laborers have increased their output per hour by 30% since 1973. Our average hourly wage in 1998 was $12.77 instead of the $18.40 we would have received simply by sharing in the benefits of our increased productivity.

"Sharing the benefits of increased productivity could have freed us to work 3 ½ day weeks or five-hour days without losing income, thus allowing us time to lead richer social and family lives and allowing many enough time away from work to actually enjoy our time on the job. Instead we're living less and working more. Why?"

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[oscar111]

2. I said we POTENTIALLY are already half there,

not acutally. I guess i didnt spell that out clearly.
We HAVE the wealth for being halfway to utopia. Whether we enjoy existing wealth, is for us to decide. Your excellent article is saying the same, really. I agree with it. Thanks for the article. See you in la la land. ho ho.