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sl4shd0rk writes:
"Bill Gates says everyone needs to prepare to be out of work in 20 years due to Robots/software taking over most jobs. In preparation for this, Gates recommends people 'should basically get on their knees and beg businesses to keep employing humans' and reduce operating overhead for businesses by 'eliminating payroll and corporate income taxes while also not raising the minimum wage'. Bill Gates, you may recall, is the former CEO of Microsoft whose business acumen has brought the technology sector such things as Metro, Windows Phone and Xbox One.
BusinessInsider took a similar theme earlier this year."
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Bill Gates: Prepare to be Assimilated
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I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 17 2014, @08:13PM
He isn't responsible for Metro, Windows Phone and Xbox One. Ballmer is.
And I checked the link. It has no quote that says "people 'should basically get on their knees and beg businesses to keep employing humans' and reduce operating overhead for businesses by 'eliminating payroll and corporate income taxes while also not raising the minimum wage'."
This article [businessinsider.com] has what looks like the source of the misquote; it says "Gates believes that the tax codes are going to need to change to encourage companies to hire employees, including, perhaps, eliminating income and payroll taxes altogether." (emphasis added)
There's nothing in any of the articles about getting on one's knees and begging businesses.
Which makes me wonder why the funk those words were put in quotation marks in TFS?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Tuesday March 18 2014, @12:49AM
I think Gates is spot-on when he refers to tax codes. The power to tax is also the power to either encourage, discourage, or destroy.
One cannot blame water for running the way it does... always seeking downhill one way or the other. One cannot blame the wealthy for investing the way they do for the same reason ( assuming the wealthy, like the water, have no altruistic motives; they will follow the laws of nature ( or economics ) they exist in.)
There are a lot of tax codes in place presently that reward hoarding and selfishness. One may find himself burdened not only by economic loss but also by having to prepare reams of paperwork and documentation to the government for doing something like trying to hire, yet the very same government may well encourage the investor to place his assets in things like hoarding real estate, patent trolling, banking services ( aka "adding liquidity to the economy by leveraging and juggling loans on top of loans" ). Then we have turkeys like Greenspan talking about yet more H1-B and outsourcing. I remember one group in Waco, Texas who tried to outsource the government.... the government did not like that very much, did they.
But then, what does that tell you about the insight of men who never had to earn a dime in their lives the way most of us have to?
I still have high hopes we as a public can resolve this at the polls instead of that mess the French had to resort to.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 1) by Qzukk on Tuesday March 18 2014, @08:56AM
The issue is that at some point, no matter how low you cut taxes, free labor from a robot or program paid for up front will be cheaper than paying continuously for labor from an employee. Given the modern capitalist's total aversion to capital investment right now, this won't happen anytime soon even if the tech existed, but at some point companies are going to look to upgrade their processes and they're going to ask how they can do it cheaper.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:41AM
"the Microsoft cofounder said that they should basically get on their knees and beg businesses to keep employing humans over algorithms" is a quote from the first linked article.
It's always my fault...
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday March 18 2014, @08:53AM
I read that as "oh yeah, people should totally become slaves to corporations... for their own good!"
I suppose that should be expected from the richest guy ever... but its downright transparent and shameful.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 5, Informative) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday March 18 2014, @09:02AM
Just read the article... so none of the "quotes" in the summary are actually in the article at all. Neither the author nor Gates said any of this. In fact Gates did not say anything close to what the summary is suggesting.
What he did say is
Now, while I still disagree with Gates on this, it isn't nearly as stupid as the "become corporate slaves" that the poster sl4shd0rk is quoting. The deceitful on the part of the poster and the editors at Soylent.
So, if the editors at Soylent are not going to bother reading the articles or... you know... do editing. Why does this site even exist? Seriously. I want an answer from someone on staff about this. A simple "sorry, I did not read the article, my bad" and a correction attached to the article itself would suffice; but getting people to actually admit they are wrong is apparently impossible.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday March 18 2014, @09:24AM
Correction, I meant to say that the first article had it as a quote, not Gates. (guess I should read and edit what I type as well)
So the article itself is dishonest, as Gates did not say anything close to it. But the summary is confusing the issue.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @02:53AM
it's called low quality
(Score: 4, Insightful) by KingofBLASH on Tuesday March 18 2014, @06:28AM
Bill Gates is a student of Buffet (they have a friendship going back years) and one of Buffet's big things is that we should tax consumption not production. That way if you are contributing to the economy and creating jobs, you can create as many jobs as possible.
Buffet has pointed out that the taxes he pays on his (high end) beachfront houses are less than many middle class people pay.
In addition, you have the fact that there is A LOT of money spent trying to a) enforce the tax code b) figure out creative ways to get out of taxes.
Get rid of the income tax, you close all loopholes, and you make something simple enough that the average person can understand .
The idea is not madness and actually is supported by quite a few prominent economists. If you are a billionaire spending all kinds of money, the consumption should be taxed. And if you are a billionaire growing your wealthy by employing people, as you are a producer, that should be encouraged.
(Score: 1) by len_harms on Tuesday March 18 2014, @10:19AM
Effectively states are already moving to this model.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0 517/Your-employer-may-be-pocketing-your-state-inco me-tax [csmonitor.com]
Then with a bit of http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/double-irish-w ith-a-dutch-sandwich.asp [investopedia.com]
You have companies effectively paying 0 and in some cases getting subsidized.
They just now have to employee a few people to take care of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken _window [wikipedia.org]
The idea is not madness and actually is supported by quite a few prominent economists.
Companies are already doing this. As an individual I am effectively taxed for consumption already. As I pay before I even spend it. However, larger companies have more ability to 'dodge taxes'. Putting smaller companies at an even bigger disadvantage.
Gates is saying just get rid of the waste. A VAT sort of tax makes sense if you want to keep the gov around. Unless you start adding in exceptions. The second you add an exception someone will figure out a way to 'maximize' the value.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 18 2014, @11:36AM
Which is, of course, insane.
You can't just create jobs by producing willy-nilly. There has to be a market for the product or service, and that requires people with money, and that requires jobs. It's a feedback loop.
Gates seems to be laboring under the misapprehension that the rich "create jobs." They only do that by being consumers, but they don't consume as much as the millions of us non-millionaires shopping at Wal-Mart.
As Nick Hanauer put it [youtube.com], "I own three cars-- not three thousand."
(Score: 1) by strattitarius on Tuesday March 18 2014, @10:24PM
The problem with simplifying the tax code is that it is also a HUGE CREATOR of jobs. Think of how many lawyers, accountants, accounting firms, H&R blocks, etc. that are related to taxes. Not only that, most of what makes corporate accounting difficult is related to taxes, putting money in the proper "buckets", proving it was supposed to be in those "buckets", and other functions that would be pointless with out crazy tax laws. So take your accounting department (which computers have already cut in half) and cut them in half.
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