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Comment Re:Corporate executives are smart. (Score 1) 541

If your competition cuts working hours to 30 to avoid healthcare costs, it they can then keep their prices lower than yours, you have to too or you're out of business. You can't rely on the goodness of people's hearts in capitalism.

The obvious way to solve that problem to make yet another regulation that forces employers to give employees at least 30 hours of work a week. However, that would just lead to even more unemployment. Wage and price controls never work. We need to have a system that doesn't depend on the goodness of people's hearts.

Counter-intuitively, that's probably an even freer market. Let's lower the barriers to hiring and try to reach full employment. Once there, employers will need to compete for workers by offering better pay etc., and the whole standard of life thing lifts itself up by its bootstraps, not by force and regulations. History, and the present day shows this over and over. There's no easy shortcut to riches just by making laws and relying on altruism.

Comment Re:grand father laws? (Score 1) 369

Don't listen to the crotchety old bitter nerds around here who hate cars. Autonomous personal transportation would be a GOOD thing for the future gearhead. Why? Look at the big picture!

  • - You will still be able to drive your car by yourself, just like you can still ride a horse or buggy if you really want to. Even better, driving yourself won't even be that much slower than an autonomous vehicle, unlike a horse. It would probably be faster than driving is today even, because there would be less slow morons holding up traffic! And the ones who are manually driving like driving and are probably good at it.
  • - It will be much less likely for you to be in an accident, because all the other cars drive perfectly. So, even if your insurance is higher than for an autonomous vehicle, it will still be lower overall!
  • - Just driving your own car, in a day when almost nobody else has drivers licenses any more, will be cool. Just like today barely anyone knows how to ride a horse or motorcycle. Those few who can have a cool/badass factor. Further, you will have more of a "cowboy" mystique like who can ride his horse places that no car can get to, because you can drive a 4x4 or dirtbike anywhere, not just on roads that are on Google Maps.
  • - With ubiquitous autonomous taxis, no longer will you have to waste time and money repairing and maintaining your boring daily driver. Instead, all that effort can be focused on your hot rod, classic car, or 4x4. And you won't need extra spots in the garage or own redundant vehicles just in case one breaks down or more than one family member at a time wants to go somewhere!
  • - Ubiquitous autonomous taxis would drive the market toward more standard, cost effective, more easily repairable vehicles that don't change year-to-year like the fashion items that are on showroom floors these days. This will make it much more easier to be a mechanic, and to have more productivity. Today, guys who are the mechanics for the cops, taxis, or buses probably have the most steady, easiest mechanic jobs because they have mastered the repairs and maintenance on a uniform fleet of Crown Victorias (or whatever). Other mechanics get paid $20/hour but the shop has to charge $100/hour because the ever-changing automotive models need expensive different special tools and computers all the time.

So the sky is not falling! If you look up you'll see the rainbows and unicorns!

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