5

CATO arg. that Soc Sec/Medicare shld be counted as “welfare” seems bogus. Both arguably work-tested. Not like TANF twitter.com/ByronYork/stat…

| 11 hours ago on Twitter

6

Good points. But can’t decide who/how many 2 admit until get control of border-why wall/e-Verify/visa track are crux twitter.com/ByronYork/stat…

| 1 day ago on Twitter

12

.@Neil_Irwin: Serious ?-Why isn’t immigration a big enough possible factor in labor supply slack for NYT to confront (refute, or confirm)?

| 1 day ago on Twitter

10

Jeb! offering “special VIP experience” in NY to top bundlers. wpo.st/mAJZ0

| 1 day ago on Twitter

3

Jeb! seems to be at the can’t-do-anything-right stage of campaign. Worried that next stage in cycle is the comeback. twitter.com/elisefoley/sta…

| 2 days ago on Twitter

14

Don’t forget big @EricCantor/Jeb! endorsement tour scheduled for tomorrow. Is it still on? Live coverage?

| 2 days ago on Twitter

4

TRUMP HATERS FOR TRUMP! “Pollsters don’t know how many of these voters are out there”–because there are 3 of them? twitter.com/PrimeNewYork/s…

| 2 days ago on Twitter

9

Free metaphor here for the taking! Not “anti-immigrant.” But need to go on immigration diet … twitter.com/MarkSKrikorian…

| 3 days ago on Twitter

31

Faced with need to promote at least one GOP idea, he picks this proven political loser (also misguided). Oy twitter.com/daveweigel/sta…

| 3 days ago on Twitter

3

Hey, at least she’s not sucking up!/”Mills also stood out for forwarding emails to Clinton that praised her own work” politico.com/story/2015/09/…

| 3 days ago on Twitter

6

Why Liberals Should Learn to Love Charter Schools thebea.st/1MZXlPD

| 3 days ago on Twitter

33

¡Jeb! lunges for the empty open-borders slot in the GOP primary. He seems to have decided to go down Jebbing. twitter.com/MarcACaputo/st…

| 3 days ago on Twitter

40 Future Trend: Servility!

Robots and Social Equality: In Reason, Ronald Bailey concedes that “automation has taken over a lot of the routine physical and intellectual tasks that once were done by middle-income workers.” This has “resulted in a more polarized economy, where highly skilled workers in such fields as infotech and biotech are richly rewarded while a greater proportion of the workforce toil at relatively lower-paying service jobs.” [E.A.]

But don’t worry! The prosperity created by robotic achievements will lead to  “a rising demand for services, involving non-routine tasks in which workers have a comparative advantage over machines—ones requiring interpersonal interaction, flexibility, adaptability, and problem-solving. ”

Like, what services, for example? Bailey cites MIT economist David Autor:

Work, he argues, is evolving away from assembly-line rigidity and back toward a more pre-industrial paradigm populated by “new artisans.” Perhaps more chefs will prepare fine meals in the homes of clients, dramatists devise elaborate virtual environments as entertainment, tailors create one-of-kind bespoke garments. [E.A.]

Hmm. Notice anything about these “pre-industrial” jobs? Maybe that at least two of the three involve a servile relationship to someone on the right side of the “more polarized economy”?  One reason arguments like Bailey’s seem so sterile and unconvincing is that he (like many libertarians) doesn’t even consider that this might be a problem.

Maybe there’s an answer to this fear of servility, After all, some servants are upwardly mobile rather than self-effacing ( see: Affleck, Ben; nanny). And if everybody is providing artisanal services to everybody else, one man’s master one day can be his bespoke tailor the next. In theory. But it’s hard to see how a polarized economy produces that sort of universal hybrid part-time servility — especially when many people who have the skills to work effectively on an assembly line don’t have the skills for “adaptability and problem solving,” let alone sucking up to clients in their homes.

I say worry.

P.S.: And no, mass unskilled immigration won’t help.

8

Don’t quite see how sugar quotas survive legal invasion of Mexican Coke (uses sugar, not fructose, tastes 3X better)

| 5 days ago on Twitter

26

Term “anchor babies” survives @NYT “myth” busting in good shape. (There are “closer to” 300,000, not 400,000!) nyti.ms/1Jqxo9A

| 5 days ago on Twitter