There has to be a price, the robot has to compensate the workers they replace.

[CK_John]

Annual salary per robot per worker layoff, and an annual tax payment to replace what would be paid to the community and school system.

IMO, this is how we will revive our party and begin to fight the automation problem.

[Hoyt]

1. That's not a bad idea and approach. Not sure about the amount, etc., but clearly

we have to do something to prepare for automation's impact on jobs.

[jberryhill]

2. Pay a virtual farrier for every horse replaced by carless drivers!

https://m.

[CK_John]

3. You do realize the automation problem affects more than cars/trucks.

Also I can't believe you don't believe there is an automation problem.

[WillowTree]

4. And the refrigerator has to compensate the ice man.......

.......and the automatic street lights have to compensate the lamp lighter and the ATM has to compensate the bank teller and voicemail has to compensate the answering service operator and on and on and on.

It's modernization. It's progress. Some jobs become obsolete and new jobs are needed to support the new technology. As with all previous progress, those who don't keep up get left behind.

It's the circle of life, Simba.

[OhioBlue]

6. your points and the OP's points can both be valid

Our leaders need to look at current situations and find solutions without being bound by ideological handcuffs.

Vehicles are licensed and gases are taxed, both contribute toward revenue for roads. As our economy changes, we need to look at new ways to fund government, schools and infrastructure.

We need both an economy that provides new jobs for the workers that lose their jobs and a government that can adapt tax/licensing laws to still provide for government, infrastructure, education and a safety net for the workers while they are in transition.

[Maru Kitteh]

5. Clinging to the slope with our ice ax is a poor summit strategy

[CK_John]

7. Don't understand..

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. Huh? Have no idea what you are actually proposing.

In the 1950's there was this huge fear that "automation" would take away millions of jobs, cause widespread unemployment. Observers were torn between thinking automation would result in a workers paradise, where people would work maybe 20 hours a week at full pay, or if widespread poverty or reliance on the government dole would result.

Those fears didn't quite come true, although things like robots on assembly lines happened, and self check-out lines in stores have happened. Ever since the very beginnings of the Industrial Revolution there has been tension between the status quo and change.

When I first went to work for Ma Bell, as the telephone company was affectionately known as back then, in 1967 as an information operator, I recall being told that if the switch over to direct dial had not occurred, that by that time every single adult woman in the country would need to be working for the phone company, connecting calls. Automation and robots are a mixed blessing. If every woman in America was needed to connect phone calls, think of all the many things those women couldn't have done.

Change is always difficult and causes a lot of upheaval.

[CK_John]

9. In the 50's I was in the service and we worried about Sputnik and building bomb shelters.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

10. We also worried about those, but

I recall quite clearly the fear of automation. So many more factory jobs were out there, and companies were streamlining the assembly line, automating as much as possible.

Any number of interesting science fiction stories were written as a result. In one, the vast number of goods now produced through automation was such that people had to frantically use up and wear out the stuff. Poor people, that is. Rich ones could live with just what they wanted or needed.