Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Is It Time for Bill Gross to Retire?

The latest monthly update, Culture Clash, by bond "guru" Bill Gross is out.

He thinks socialism is coming via a universal basic income:
 [W]e should spend money where it’s needed most – our collapsing infrastructure for instance, health care for an aging generation and perhaps on a revolutionary new idea called UBI – Universal Basic Income. If more and more workers are going to be displaced by robots, then they will need money to live on, will they not? And if that strikes you as a form of socialism, I would suggest we get used to it.
What's really insane about this view is that he gives the impression that Ron Paul would be in favor of it and would be in favor of the Fed pumping helicopter money to pay for the UBI:
Higher taxes are one way to pay for it, but let me suggest another – something that a Rand Paul or father Ron would have been good at. Drop the money from helicopters.
Beyond the madness of UBI and the absurd idea that Ron Paul would be in favor of UBI and be willing to print helicopter money to pay for it, the idea, that robots will eliminate jobs that won't result in new jobs, displays an ignorance of basic economics (SEE: Robots and Jobs).

It is difficult to find two sentences of recent financial commentary that are so out of touch with reality.  Is it time for Gross to spend more time with his stamp collection?

--RW

(ht Christopher Barcelo)

2 comments:

  1. Let's be clear. Robots will mean new/different jobs, but probably not for the people that actually lost their jobs. Retraining has its limits. Some people are limited by IQ, etc.

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  2. With UBI and confiscatory taxes combined with high inflation, I'm curious how he thinks the few remaining productive people will be motivated to remain oroductive?

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