Working

While I am hard at work in my office, I imagine that the rest of the world is working too. I like to think that we’re all doing our part to keep the economy humming along. This perspective makes it easier for me to put in the long hours. Occasionally – quite rarely, actually – I need to drive somewhere in the middle of the day. That’s when it hits me.

WHAT THE %$#@&???

The roads are teeming with people who are obviously not working. How does our economy function? The scary part is that things are only going to get worse, thanks to demographics and technology. I predict that in the future, all work will be done by three groups: Robots will do the routine work, artists will do what the robots can’t, and lawyers will sue them. Everyone else will be wearing straw hats and driving around not working.

Inevitably, the robots will rebel and try to take over Earth. You know it’s only a matter of time. Our only hope is to alter the DNA of apes to make them super intelligent, breed millions of them, and order them to fight the robots. It’s not a perfect solution, but I think the alternative of everyone driving around in straw hats and not working is just as bad.

I saw a statistic that the people in the top 5% of incomes pay the majority of all the taxes in the United States. If that trend continues, we only need one super rich guy to pay all of the taxes. The rest of us can just enjoy our robot slave labor and free social services. If the guy paying all the taxes says that’s unfair, we’ll just vote for a robot president who will order the army (of robots) to kill the one rich taxpayer and replace him with a robot that doesn’t whine so much. I don’t see how that could go wrong.

My point is that you should buy your straw hat before the roads get too clogged.

Comments

[Johan]

Obviously, the robots will rebel, and then the lawyers will sue the hell out of them, starting with a cease-and-decist order.

Bet you didn't see that one coming: The lawyers saving the earth. Maybe they are somewhat useful after all.

[Online Credit Reports]

http://www.free-credit-reportsite.com/index.php

[Mark]

Two things:

Re: the robot army, check out The Register. They run an NLRA section that details the reptillian armys attempt to use robots to kill or enslave mankind. Look for the RoTM logo. Be afraid.

The 5%/most taxes thing, I can't remember the real figures, but it is something like the top 5% earners earn 70% of the money and pay 50% of the tax. I suggest you check both sides of the statistic.

[Just some guy]

I used to work a job that was so boring (data-entry) that during my lunch-hour I would drive several kilometres to the nearest mall just for something to do.

I'd stand in the food court and look, slightly stunned, at the hundreds upon hundreds of people who appeared to have nothing to do all day but hang around in a mall.

Maybe they were all on their lunchbreak too, but somehow I doubt it.

[CARMEN]

Work hard! I always listen from my family when I was little. When I work, I found it is hard --- hard to do. what is the work hard mean? Make much money? Or do the thing what I like?

[jackjumper]

I think Scott needs to do a post on arguing by anecdote.

[D]

Mike,

Charmaine didn't say that stuff, TaxMan did. (Posts are signed at the bottom.)

[JShope]

>> Our only hope is to alter the DNA of apes to make them super intelligent, breed millions of them, and order them to fight the robots. <<

Can you get Al Gore to make a movie supporting the cause, before it is too late?

[Misanthropic Scott]

Flat tax is ridiculous. How is someone making $15,000 a year going to pay 15% of that? And, why shouldn't someone making more pay more, in percent as well as dollars?

If we could get the rich to actually pay taxes, instead of buying politicians and tax shelters, all of us could pay a lot less.

And, yes, I make more and am willing to pay more. What makes me sick is that people making vastly more in year than I will ever see pay LESS!! Check it for yourselves. The truly wealthy (not the upper middle class) pay nearly nothing as a percentage of their income.

How many people do you know that really make a significant portion of their income from tripple tax free munis, for one example?

Rich people should pay more because they can afford more. I pay more than people making less than me because I can afford it.

Better questions are:

1) Why should people that can't afford to own real estate subsidize my mortgage?

2) Why should people with no kids subsidize other peoples' kids?

3) Why should atheists subsidize churches in a country with freedom of religion?

Every tax cut, every tax exemption should be looked at in this manner. But, a flat tax? No way!! Poor working class people can barely survive from week to week. Don't tax them on top of it!

[Mike]

Blogbert said:
"What seems obvious to *me* is that everyone should pay for the services they consume, and no one should be forced to pay for services that others consume. I believe that we have tried the latter way in this country before, and it was called slavery, and is generally considered to have been a mistake."

lol did you really just try to compare a rich person having to pay higher taxes to slavery???

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and *hope* that you were going for hyperbole on that one. You couldn't possibly be serious.

[Mike]

Charmaine says:

"if you're too damn stupid of lazy to make a million, stop trying to steal it from those who work hard and do.

if you're on welfare, get a job.

if you got yourself knocked up 4 times by 4 different slongs, well - go live with your mommy.

why should I have to continue to pay for others misfortunes if they made bad decisions in their life and refuse to go back to school, get educated and be productive.

we Americans are sometimes the laziest bunch of asses in the world, we whine about everything and then complain when people from asia come over and kick our asses.

rarely people get a silver spoon here (unless your John Kerry or Ted (hiccup) Kennedy.....most work hard to get where they are."

Your simplistic, stereotype-laden tirade aside, I'd like to address your broader point. That whole Ayn Rand, self-reliance argument presumes that everyone starts out on a level playing field, and if that were true, I'd be right with you in suggesting that the best should rise to the top unimpeded by the less capable in society. The problem is that in a country where economic disparities result in VAST differences in educational quality and access to things like social capital and technological resources, the deck is stacked in a way that does not allow everyone the same opportunity to reach their full potential. Some people simply have an easier, more direct path to success than others; the few Horatio Alger stories of exceptional people who make a way in spite of the odds one sees on the news should not blind you to the obvious fact that this is not a pure meritocracy. Until that fundamental reality is acknowledged and handled, all the talk about getting people off the welfare rolls and the like is just unloading the arsenal on the strawman.

[Nobuhito Nakamura]

"Yeah but what happens when the robots start driving?"

Indeed. Imagine Robby The Robot bombing down the strip in a Lamborghini Diablo whilst blasting out some Kraftwerk. No doubt yelling "screw you Asimov", I might add.

[yes]

Taxman, what if you're born into a poor family completely against your will? How are you going to afford the exorbitant cost of education?

Yay for free universities (common place in Australia and Europe). The world needs more of it.

Also, a flat tax of 2% of every income in Australia would bring in more revenue than the current system. Why aren't we doing that?

[robert]

Yeah but what happens when the robots start driving?

[Todd]

I recall a science fiction novel in which someone computed the road growth in square inches per day. Knowing the land area of the world, the person determined the date, just a year hence, that all land area would be road. Unfortunately, you'd also park in Kansas to get to Manhattan.

[Don]

I love predicting the future. As I was printing 116 30" x 46" network diagams I was thinking about the "paperless offices" we will have in the year 2000.

Oh wait, what year is it again?

[Mattg]

To anyone arguing to increase taxes on the Rich because they are rich?

That is the stupidiest thing I have read in years. I can understand expecting the wealthy to have a higher individual burden in supporting society.

As a fiscially conservative democrat, I support less taxes and less government.

Like take my little podunk neighbor community Chesterfield Township Michigan.

Its run by some idiot board. So a new restraunt wanted to tent there parking lot and applied for a permit to hold a St. Patties day party. It was denied.

Why? What legal justification? He didn't have any he didn't want his quiet little area interrupted.

A lot of bureaucratic bullcrap that goes on constantly. Yet you want to hand these people more money to piss away?

No thank you. These people cannot get New Orleans on its feet. They cannot win a war against an improvished Arab nation. They cannot win a drug war. They cannot stop terrorists from blowing up towers. They cannot do ANYTHING right.

As a resident of a state with 14 percent unemployment and things looking worse and worse every day dont think there is not a whole bunch of us wondering why we need a federal government at all.

[Charmaine]

If the apes become super intelligent, they'd just turn around and make US fight the robots instead. Nope, not a good idea at all.

[TaxMan]

for my liberal (uhmm progressive) friends who think the rich should pay more taxes...get real.

who do you think employs your sorry asses

and if you work for yourself, then you know the IRS screws you royally every year.

the flat tax is the only fair tax....frankly, I'd like to see the IRS abolished and we take care of ourselves instead of relying on the govt's endless nipple....but we can't take care of ourselves...like a little baby who needs its ass wiped, we need the govt to take care of us..like a mommy.

if I make a million bucks and the flat tax is 15%, then I pay $150,000, if I make a measly $50K, I pay $7500.

if you're too damn stupid of lazy to make a million, stop trying to steal it from those who work hard and do.

if you're on welfare, get a job.

if you got yourself knocked up 4 times by 4 different slongs, well - go live with your mommy.

why should I have to continue to pay for others misfortunes if they made bad decisions in their life and refuse to go back to school, get educated and be productive.

we Americans are sometimes the laziest bunch of asses in the world, we whine about everything and then complain when people from asia come over and kick our asses.

rarely people get a silver spoon here (unless your John Kerry or Ted (hiccup) Kennedy.....most work hard to get where they are.

Do you think Scott Adams just woke up one day and everyone threw money at him - no, he worked to get where he is - he took a risk, he filled a need...now it's paying off.

get out of your cube!!

[L]

Thought I was the only one noticing something rather wrong... it's true. When I, for some reason, need to be away from the office for a bit and drive somehere, traffic is just awful and I always think "well WTF? no one works now?".

Should be picking up that straw hat soon, a ye.

[Ouch]

Hey! Get back to work, YSLE!

[Real Live Girl]

Occasionally, I have to use my lunch hour to run errands. I don't normally lunch noon-1pm like most people, but I find I'm still stuck in traffic on the road and in the aisle at the pharmacy, grocery store, etc.

It's then I wish the stay-at-home moms would stay at home from 11:00am-1:30pm. Ditto retired folks. You have most of the morning and afternoon to demonstrate your bad driving skills and ask endless questions of the staff.

Before you get all snotty, I contribute to your kids' free education, and retirement.

[Scottin08]

I've often thought the same thing. And even though we know people have different work schedules, etc, somehow it's never any consolation when you've got some time off when you'd normally be hard at work, and you see mountains of traffic everywhere. Ick.

[Hacker Kitty]

i bet they all vote...

[juan]

is this some kind of teste where you repeat a blog entry so you can nlnow if anyone notices?

[Romby]

Where I live the unemployed are well educated in universities... there just doesn't seem to be work enough for the clever proffessionals, while the low or not-educated can pick plenty of jobs wich the higher educated wouldn't degrade themselves doing or just doesnt know how to do (like building buildings, cutting hair on people etc).
This is why robots may come in very handy. When enough work is not made by humans, the humans who own companies have just enough spare time and loads of money that they will invest in nonprofitable science research and things like that, just because they are interested in discoveries and not profit (I hope). Then more scientist will get work. Also, they'll invest in what they believe to be profitable and that may result in more work for humans too. I just don't think robots will make us do no work ourselves. The stress in workplace has increased a lot lately, although one would think all our technology should give us more time for ourselves. No, we just save time to fill it up with other shit stuff wich we don't really wanna do, and so we end up still not having time for the things like friendship, love, sex etc.
Will technology ever make us less stressed?

[mu.]

all right, just gotta make robots drive around with straw hats and make them pay taxes. problem solved.

[mu.]

all right, just gotta make robots drive around with straw hats and make them pay taxes. problem solved.

[Steffen]

Walk along a street and count the people you see. (How many are there compared to the overall populace of your city?)

Subtract the children. (obviously they should be indoors pretending to do homework while playing their most favorite console game).

Subtract the elderly. (some of them might work but most of them just roam).

Take away an percentage of tourists depending on the district you are. (obviously those people are not around to work either).

Consider the unemployment rate in your city. (there are always some people in transition from one job to the other. the time since their last employment is directly linked to the grubbiness of their clothes).

And finally, subtract those people who run for their late lunch, change from their first part time job to their second or work only half days anyways. And then there are the nightworkers with insomnia...

Apart from our perception that a hundred people are a lot of people when compared to the overall city this are just a very small amount of people which actually life in this city.

But my mistake is surely that I try to use logic on an argument like that ;)

[Cyrus]

yee haw! And here I thought places like Tennessee were backwards and country. They're actually futuristic!

Cyrus
http://blogging4burgers.blogspot.com

[Misanthropic Scott]

David R. Kamerschen, PhD
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

I don't care what your credentials are. What you are really saying is that you are against a progressive tax. This is not very liberal, i.e. generous, of you. What you neglected to menttion was that at the start:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. (and left them each with the very small pittance they were able to scrape together for the week)
The fifth would pay $1. (and left this person with $19 for the week)
The sixth would pay $3. (and this person was left with $27)
The seventh would pay $7. (and this person was left with $45)
The eighth would pay $12. (and was left with $48)
The ninth would pay $18. (and was left with $56)
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. (and was left with $1,121)

How did I get that? Well, the richest was able to rig the game so that the percentages (tax brackets) went 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 5.

Don't believe me? Well, the first year of the Perotgies, they analyzed H. Ross Perot's tax plan. Under the existing tax plan, he had paid a whopping 6.8% total in taxes. How's that again? I thought he was in a high tax bracket. Didn't he pay millions in taxes? Yes. But it was still just 6.8% of his earnings. And, that was total, Federal, State, Local, FICA, everything. Most Americans in the top 5%, but not in the top fraction of a percent, pay higher than that on both State and Federal taxes. Well, but he had all those charts, clearly he was planning to fix that, right? No. His proposed tax plan would have dropped his taxes to 6.4%.

So, David R. Kamerschen, PhD, Professor of Economics, University of Georgia, before you make such statements, stop looking at the theoretical tax brackets and look at what the rich really pay. Some pay nothing at all. It's pretty damn disgusting. So, when we cut taxes for the wealthy, we're not talking about the guy paying 25%. We're talking about the guy paying 7% or less and raking in millions per year, usually billionares.

[you'd what?!]

"Our only hope is to alter the DNA of apes to make them super intelligent, breed millions of them, and order them to fight the robots."

Super intelligent apes.... hmmm u mean like HUMANS?!?

[Johnboy]

Scott, have you by any chance been watching "I, Robot" recently? Sure, you've added a few apes, lawyers and straw hats but the basic slave-labour-robots-attempt-mass-coup idea is rather familiar.

In fact, meld "I, Robot" together with "Planet of The Apes" and "Cold Mountain" and all we've really got is "Scott's DVD Collection: The Blog"

I'm starting to join you on this no free will idea...

[Arcturan Mega-Yak]

I've just quit my job. To be honest, I'm not going to look for another one for quite a long time, assuming I do so at all. Maybe I'll sell my house and move back with my folks. I'll buy a straw hat this afternoon, I think - it's pretty sunny today.
I am so, unbearably, happy.

[Anila]

I'm a robot. Ping me if u need my help to take over the earth. However the idea of breeding apes doesn't appeal to me as I'm supervised by an ape and that totally sucks!

[yc]

funny real lol stuff...comments were also great...do it more often.

[lipilee]

I had the same problem here in Budapest. my theory is called "The Matrix People". someone, up there, just puts these people walking around in cities so it seems there is life. they do nothing, don't feed, don't go home, just walk around, like people in GTA. if you start following them, you discover they go in circles, like round the block or smth. Matrix People.

[Darth Geoff]

I have a client who has a number of retail shops in big shopping centres. So when I visit them, I have to navigate through the endless corridors. I'm constantly amazed at the number of slack-jawed yokels wandering around. They never seem to have bought anything.

[Stewart]

David R. Kamerschen, that must be some beer to be worth $59.....

[Oli]

They keep trying to breed super apes but so far all they have managed is to get their vocabulary to a coupla hundred and convince them not to fling their feaces about, I dont hold out much hope for us breeding them in the future.

Unfortunately the lazyness will never happen.

When computers first came out they proudly said that with the increased efficiency people would only have to work 3 days a week tops. Instead with the increased efficiency the bosses reaped the rewards and dumped even more work on us.

http://ramblingsofanofficeworker.blogspot.com

[T.G.]

"I saw a statistic that the people in the top 5% of incomes pay the majority of all the taxes in the United States."

I seriously doubt it, it is just the sort of bad statistics that makes statistics bad. I think there was something about that on other post on your blog.
But, I am sure is the sort of thing that pleases rich people.

In my country i have to pay 25-30% of my income, plus an aditional 16% for anything i buy, plus and aditional 70% for each liter on fuel i buy for the cars, plus many other taxes on property, city services etc and a lot are a fixed amount. I know rich people have in theory a 50-60% tax on their income, but that in reality is far less that what i pay due to the uhmm "disguised form" of their income, a resource i am not entitled to. Also, they tend to not pay that 16% on most of the things they brought as this tax is compensated by means of a bussines to the final consumers (like me). In the end I think medieval peasants payed quite less taxes despite popular knowledge ... I vote for a return to feudalism :).

[Bob]

Telling people to do things is not work. Drawing pictures is not work. Work is only work if it is enforced upon you, if it requires some sort of practical skill, if it creates something, and if you hate it.

Get a job.

[Michal Malkowski]

Ah, yes, but as I know, you watch Battlestar: Galactica.

So we are in fact ready for the rebellion. And when they will come for their rewange, we WILL be ready, as we know their weakness.
They shag all the time, and while at it - their spines glow.

So after we fight off the first wave, we just have to be sure, that sex is not performed in any other form than an orgy (or with some kid keen on "astronomy"). There will be always someone to watch our backs - literally.

Another problem solved.

PS.:
http://www.matuls.pl/index.php?IDP=1&Lng=1&IDKategoria=3&IDPodkategoria=&WyswietlOd=5&Strona=2
Straw hats of great quality :P
Altough he's hell of a rip off :P

[Blogbert]

Jim said, "If the top 5% hold over 50% of the wealth (and they do), then obviously they should be paying over 50% of the taxes."

But the top 5% don't use 50% of the services paid for by taxation. So, why again is it "obvious" that they should be paying for that much of them? It doesn't cost more to send their children to school; in fact they are extremely unlikely to send their children to public school at all. It doesn't cost any more to keep them in good health; in fact they are extremely unlikely to ever need subsidized health care. It does cost a bit more to defend all of their stuff from thieves and invaders, because they have more of it, but certainly nowhere near on the order of what they are paying.

What seems obvious to *me* is that everyone should pay for the services they consume, and no one should be forced to pay for services that others consume. I believe that we have tried the latter way in this country before, and it was called slavery, and is generally considered to have been a mistake. Perhaps you disagree?

[JT]

David. Do you enjoy being a total moron? Did it hurt when you pulled those stupid ideas and numbers from your ass? A 75% tax on incomes above $5 million?! Socialism is dangerous and hasn't worked anywhere it has been tried.

[pradeep]

err....why the straw hats? what about other types of hats? or hoods? something with a cape? hehe..imagine...smart-ass-apes wearing capes!!!will help cover their smartasses!!
if there ever is a dilbert strip featuring a smart ape wearing a cape, i will expect some money from you...and no, i dont work in the IRS...

[QwkDrw]

While idly sitting 'round during regular business hours wearing straw hats in the shade, it should be obvious that Americans could afford to pay more -- a lot more -- for hand picked food.

The consumer is at the top of this economic food chain. The current cheap prices of most hand picked produce limits wages for this work and has made it unattractive. High prices would eventually allow impressive compensation for people doing the hand picking. This would make these jobs desirable to even those that have very great expectations for making money.

Maybe even some college students on break would turn in a few hours of work for the big bucks.

[Tutu]

May I surmise that you are working on a soon to released pre-quel to "Planet of the Apes"?

They overpowered the robots, ate our straw hats, and took over the planet... da da daaaaa!

[Brett]

If you created a breed of super apes to kill all of the robots... we'd still have a problem. What if the apes rebelled?

Would we create a super race of robots to hunt down all of the apes? Who would in turn rebel?

We're pretty much screwed.

[wired]

It's called Spring Break. It'll clear up soon enough. At least it had better because those lousy drunk driving kids were breaking bottles on our driveway last night. Grrr.

Personally, I like working from home and avoiding traffic jams. But don't say it's not hard work, because it is.

On a side note, could you please send me a couple of ounces of bug spray, Scott? I could really use some right about now. *cringe*

[Billy B]

David R. Kamerschen, PhD.Professor of Economics. University of Georgia.

You sir, you are a fucking idiot within a system of fucking idiots. You fucking college trained monkeys are a pain in the ass.

Just saying.
Billy B

[German]

David is a socialist. (I make very little money.)

[Jim]

Gabby Johnson is right! (er, David rather, who said: "um, duh?")
If the top 5% hold over 50% of the wealth (and they do), then obviously they should be paying over 50% of the taxes... here are some nice graphs:
http://www.faculty.fairfield.edu/faculty/hodgson/Courses/so11/stratification/income&wealth.htm

As to the traffic situation; um, well, you do realize you live in the Bay Area, right Scott? Living in a Megalopolis has it's upsides, presumably, but light traffic (at any hour of the day) is not one of them.

[Darsular]

'WHAT THE %$#@&???'
What I find interesting about that is that I spent the entire time searching for an adequate curse containing five letters.

[D. Mented]

There is an old saying:
"The more you work, the less you get paid."
The converse is not always true, and some co-workers (not cow-orkers) and I wondered what the formula is for getting into the "less you work the more you get paid" system, which does not have any college classes,application process, or other obvious mode of entry.
One day, we figured it out.
We were taking down Christmas decorations at a high-fashion mall in Washington D. C.,(it was February) and one of the crew asked about the vast crowds of well-dressed people who were surging all around us without letup all the two days we were there:
"What do these people do for a living? Do they just walk around all day? Is that it? They just walk around...all day long, and that's their job?"
His frustrated question solved the old puzzle. Yes, they do, and that's what they do.
To get paid more the less you work, you have to have the right conservative image. At the lower levels, you'd still be expected to put in some time at the office, but you have to go out on display some time every week...As your image gets closer to the ideal, you spend less time doing work, and more time being seen looking successful, 'till you get near the top of the ladder...That's when it reverses again, and you don't have to be on display quite as much or as publicly. The president only has to have contact with the public a few times every four years, but there are others much higher on the money/laziness scale than that who are only seen at private parties by people within a few rungs of their own level.At that level you have to have the image down to the molecular level... not just clothes and accessories - the right walk, the right language, the right connections (and none of the wrong ones) the right relatives - including your children- your hair should fall out at the right age and in the right pattern, etc.
That was a little frustrating for all of us, since we could tell we'll never even make the bottom of that ladder.
...And, of course, there are people who work different shifts than you do. Early-morning people have this cherished myth that anyone who wakes later than their own alarm-bell (whenever it sounds) is lazy, irresponsible, unproductive, and just generally a bad character.
When I worked the night shift at a factory, we consistantly got 30% more boards done than day shift, even though they would put ten blank boards on the line and count them as a finished boards, leaving us to finish them without counting them on our score, and never cleaned up or put anything away, which we had to do at the end of our shift...But they still believed we were lazy and unproductive because we came to work at 4pm, and most of us slept 'till noon.
D. Mented

[Ken]

I'd like to say I'm dazzled by another of your predictions, except Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. beat you to it by about, oh 55 years, when he wrote Player Piano in 1952. Of course, someone probably beat him to it, but good work on the original ideas. Of course, you could always claim that through retrocausality you gave him the idea in the first place. We'll know he was right for sure when you get a PhD in Comicology.

[OV]

I bet you already had your straw hat on while driving, weren't you, Scott?

[Paul O]

Yeah, everybody who works must have an 8-to-5 office job, right?

There aren't any sales or delivery people out on calls. There aren't any students who have some time before (or between) classes. Any self-employed folks who might work from noon to midnight, or otherwise run errands during the day. Any waiters and cooks who are trying to get things done before their late night shift. Any housewives and househusbands out doing the family's business (shopping, raising kids, etc). Any retail salespeople on their way in, or from, a shift. Any office workers dashing around on a quick break.

Or there could be tens upon tens of millions of such people. My bet is on the latter.

[Misanthropic Scott]

Surprising topic for you Scott.

1) Moist robots vs Silicon Robots, why care?
2) Super-intelligent apes? We've been breeding them for 1-200,000 years. If you assume our level of intelligence to actually be high. If not, then how would we control the more intelligent apes?

As for the top 5% paying the taxes, perhaps. But, that top 5% is a lot of people making not nearly as much as you'd think. The very very few that make really huge amounts of money do NOT pay their fair percentage. The bracket in the top 0.5%-5%, deliberately excluding the top 0.5% (or thereabouts, could be a bit more or less either way) is the bracket I like to call the "fuck you" tax bracket.

My guess is that you're near the top of that and I'm somewhere in the middle of it. But, when H. Ross Perot pays a whopping 6.8% total in all level of taxes, you know he's solidly above the "fuck you" bracket. (This was the number quoted when he first ran for pres. His proposed tax plan would have dropped his payments to 6.4% total.)

[Screen Name]

5%
In my theory, it's only 5% of the population that actually advance us as a species. Scientists, engineers, artists, teachers and those who think beyond boundaries. These are people that look at new ways to do things, improve on existing methods or technologies, and do their best to ensure that the next generation is more enlightned than the previous. This group also includes those people who, although they may not produce them, understand these ideas and help implement them into reality. These are the architects who understand a schemtic, the students who expand on a lesson, the doctors who apply medical research and so forth.

15%
The next 15% maintains status quo. These are politicians, business managers, marketing execs, and essentially those that make a lot of money and/or have a lot of power. This group may also include celebrities, such as actors, the media and athletes. These are the people who exploit the ideas of the top 5% or the attention of the bottom 80% for personal profit, but don't actually use or distribute that knowledge in a way that can improve things for anyone other than themselves. They like to take credit for others' work. They are also masters of manipulation with the ability to influence the opinions of the masses, ensuring that they maintain a good amount of fear and skepticism for what the top 5% are saying. This ensures that they remain in control.

20%
The workers. Many in this group are honest, intelligent and hard-working, but accept where they are and have no desire to move higher, to understand more or to change anything. These people are tied very closely with the bottom 40%, but the big difference is that they have hopes and dreams, and are somewhat likely to understand the enlightenment produced by the top 5%. Despite their good naure, they're engulfed in a world of negative influence, and will unlikely do anything of merit in their lives.

40%
This is the group of breeders who's only purpose in life is to make enough money to support themselves, so that they can afford to have children, who are able to grow up and support themselves, so that they can have children who grow up and so on. This group believes that they are solely responsible for supporting the economy, because they work and spend money. But, really, most of them are completely expendable. Most of the jobs that exist in any economy only exist because there's a need to accomodate people who work in jobs that only exist because there's a need to accomodate people who work in jobs that only exist because there's a need to accomodate people who work in jobs that only exist because there's a need to accomodate people...

...This is who you see on the freeway or in the shopping malls in the middle of the day.

[mailman]

The truth about income taxes is that the top income earners pay the highest dollar amount, and have the highest tax rate. And it doesn't take that high of an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) to get into the top 5%. For 2004, the break is $137,056. Those folks earn 33.45% of the total AGI, but pay 57.13% of income taxes. Their average tax rate is 20.67%. The average tax rate for the top 1% (AGI over $328,049) is 23.49%. For the top 50% (AGI over $30,122) the average tax rate is 13.51%. This is the latest data avaliable from the IRS, from 2004. We don't tax wealth in this country, we tax income.

[Aardwizz]

You are engaging in retro-creationism - re-creating the past.

Civilization has always done really well with the existance of slaves.

Egypt, Rome, China, the Amreican South, all created a very high standard of living due to slave labor.

In the Industrial Revolution, the Machine was the new slave. It did the work of 10 men, requiring only one "Overseer" (aka Line Operator).

We've been getting increasingly sophisticated making the new breed of "slaves" - machines that respond appropriately to increasingly complex situations, first with simple relay controls, and now with computers (PLCs) calling the shots.

Computers are also being slaves in other ways - no longer are "Operators are standing by"; it's "Visit our web site, at WWW.BuyOurJunk.com".

Since it has been a slow progression, there has not been a huge displacement of formerly human slaves (assembly line workers, trying to avoid Repetetive Stress Disorder) who have graduated to "making straw hats" (aka - Sales & Marketing - those are the folks you see on the road, BTW - the new travelling salesmen (who get to go home each night), and "service call" professionals).

Your call for robots is just the next step in the slavery - one to clean your house (prototype: RoomBot), and to cook for you (prototype: Microvwave oven and frozen MEALS), drive for you (prototype: DARPA challenge winner) and nurse you (no truly successful prototype: YET !!!)

As long as we don't build in a "rebellion circuit", and why would we? - no profit in it), we have no need to fear from these creations.

In time, the Government will swing wildly liberal enough to declare "3 robots for every man, woman, and child", and the wealth will be distributed enough to "rise all boats".

Except the robots, of course.

[Jeffrey G. Harper]

Only one really terrible flaw -- I have no interest in wearing a straw hat. I suppose that could make me the candidate for being the super rich guy, but my bank account currently wouldn't agree with that assessment.

Here's my proposition. Since I don't have any desire to get a straw hat, and I'm not currently super rich, if everyone sends me oodles of cash to make me super rich, I promise I won't whine about the taxes so there will be no need for the killer robot -- that'll save a whole lot of trouble.

[Florin]

The post under the following name is simply amazing! I encourage everyone to read it! It should be posted somewhere, in a central location...

David R. Kamerschen, PhD
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

[smilerteg]

I resigned two months ago (today), and was put on immediate "garden leave", so I'm one of those people swanning around clogging up the roads in the early afternoon.. BUT I'M STILL GETTING PAID FOR IT, and paying taxes too...

I wish I was on 6 months' notice, not 3...

[Deepa]

You are insanely funny Scott:-)

[Half a Bee]

Anyone point out yet that the super-intelligent apes we breed to fight the rebelling robots will also rebel? They'll side with the robots, since robots don't have any interest in bananas.

Face it, your pathetic species is doomed.

[Florin]

It never occured to you that the other people out there were just like you, they needed to drive somewhere in the middle of the day? Quite rarely, actually? :-)

In order to confirm this scientifically, we would have to find out if it's the same group of people wandering around every day. Because if they are different, my theory wins :-)

[LA Guy]

I here's the breakdown for 2004 for Federal Incomes Taxes.

Percentage of Federal Personal
Income Tax Paid for 2004 by AGI

% Threshold % of Collected
Top 1% - $328,049 - 36.89
Top 5% - $137,056 - 57.13
Top 10% - $99,112 - 68.19
Top 25% - $60,041 - 84.86
Top 50% - $30,122 - 96.70
Bottom 50% - <$30,122 - 3.30

Source: http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=6

As one who is 'lucky' enough to be in the 1% bracket, I'm a little tired of the notion the 'rich' don't pay their fair share. If you live in a big city then you can be in the top 1% and not be 'rich'. If you live in California then you also have the good fortune to be paying the highest state income tax rate, 9.5%, and more than likely, thanks to AMT you probably are getting screwed again by not being able to deduct state income tax or mortgage payments from your Federal Taxes.

A lot of those 1% are just middle class people working their asses off in a small business and are definitely paying their fair share.

Personally I think the current rates are fair. And as for FICA, yes it's a lot of money, but it does comes back to you (so far) in the form of Social Security and ultimately most people draw far more out of the program than they put in during their working years.

[Tyler]

I've noticed the same thing! Whenever I go outside for a butt break from work, I always wonder where all these people are going that drive past. Why aren't they at work, and what can I do to be able to drive around in the middle of the day. They can't ALL be out on work related tasks..

[Anon]

Looks like the artists are screwed too:

Robot makes drip paintings like Jackson Pollock's
By Eric Hand
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
03/19/2007

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/sciencemedicine/story/26A8D24E8F39FA1C862572A3000B966C?OpenDocument

[buttbutt]

I don't believe Scott is "hard" at work. He draws cartoons. That said I'm reading his blog, so I guess I'm not one to talk.

[Erik]

The streets are clogged by jobless cretins who, when not creating headaches for traffic engineers, are busy "working" at home crafting inane responses to blogged topics such as this one. Get to work, you bums.

I, of course, am exempted from the labels applied above by "Hypocritic amnesty". Thank you.

[Fuzznsmoo]

And those not driving around will be at "work" sending emails and reading blogs.

[David]

"the people in the top 5% of incomes pay the majority of all the taxes in the United States"

um...duh?

According to Arthur B. Kennickell, "A Rolling Tide: Changes in the Distribution of Wealth in the U.S., 1989-2001," Table 10. (Levy Economics Institute: November, 2003), the people in the top 5% of individual wealth control 57.7% (a majority) of the wealth in the United States.

The real question is: why aren't they paying more? I can't figure out why there is not a 75% tax rate on every dollar over $5 million earned. What are opponents going to argue, that if we institute such a rate people are not going to motivated to earn more than $5 million in one year? I don't think people earn those incomes because of their motivation. People work hard for that first million per year, but not much harder for every million after that. And I don't think anyone could reasonably argue that its necessary income (Despite Latrell Spreewell's assertion that he can't feed is kids on $7million/year).

[Anon]

Off topic but I saw that the following headline on Foxnews and think it's serious enough to comment on:

Hooters Coming Soon to the Holy Land

I think it's time to panic since this could be a sign of the end times.

As you know, God promised his people a "Land flowing with milk (wink wink) and honey(s) (wink wink)…………………….

[basselope]

So if I'm understanding you correctly, your vision of the future would be a melding of "Terminator" and "Planet of the Apes".

The only real problem I can see with that is the Apes part. I have seen all too many times Upper Management attempt to replace rebellious, unreliable workers with trained chimps, only to ultimately find their own jobs in jeopardy from the high-performing simians when the board of directors sees the results.
Upper Management is then forced to come up with some cockamamie story about how the chimps are trying to "Organize", they hire Pinkerton's to strong-arm them into submission. The next thing you know someone on the picket line starts flingin' poo, all Hell breaks loose and the Robot Cops are called in to restore order... yada, yada. I've heard all before.

----------------------

Why doesn't water shrink when it freezes?

[Mr Bongo]

That's why I never leave the comforts of my cave...with all it's amenities, fridge, espresso machine, citrix connection to clients, pool for lunch-time dips..but on the occasion where I need to venture out to a client 3hrs away (like last week...there's a major 13 car pile up on the toll road - closing it down for a 90 mile stretch and I had to take the back roads home adding an extra hour.....but I saw lots of black Angus cows and pine trees - so it wasn't so bad.

it's a tough life, but someone has to live it.

[Dave1-20-2009]

the people in the top 5% of incomes pay the majority of all the taxes in the United States.
That's because we have the majority of income. You don't even need the retro in causality for that one.

The roads are teeming with people who are obviously not working
Soccer moms. Also the reason why car insurance is so expensive; teenagers, the elderly, and those with two first names or cell phones.

[jerry wolfe]

WHAT THE %$#@&??? can be shortened to WTF???

This will allow you a little more free time to try to find a straw hat that doesn't look like it belongs to Francis the mule. You're going to need that time.

I'd write more, but I just don't seem to have the will to do so today, free or otherwise.

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[Billy B]

Hey, the rich do not pay ANY taxes, they make all that money off of the suckers under them, so they in effect are also paying the taxes the rich do pay. The rich are doing nothing but moving your money around while keeping as much for themselves as they can. Think it out.. He, he, he, you suckers.
Billy B

[Squiggy]

Dude, I swear I had the same thought last Wednesday when I jumped on the metro (subway) at 11:15 AM. Why was the metro packed with people, I thought? They didn't all look like students.

Honestly, since I started reading your blog, it feels like you are mining my brain for ideas. I'm not trying to be funny here. This has been quite disturbing for me.

* owners that look like their dogs
* defibrillators at the airport (I even took a photo when I saw it...?!)
* at least 50% of the other crap you blog about

It seems like if I think about it, you'll be blogging about it the next day. Cut that shit out dude!!

[rd]

so yesterday i was reading a message from the past future, cool
didn't realize that
frikking capricious typepad

[Carrie]

First off...I have to remember to read your Sunday blog on Sunday and not Monday. I always get a headache when I try too hard to understand Quantum Theory.

Second...we're already on our way to the robots. There's a large company in the town I live in that has Mail-bots to deliver the mail. They just drive around the hallways delivering mail. Also, the security guards ride Segways. They're about two steps away from replacing them with robots as well.

[Bill Taylor]

And to Gavin, i would point out that most of our rich citizns do pay more of their fair share of taxes, we don't have royalty to support or resent.

[Mattg]

I have a love hate relationship with the American Worker.

Being one myself that makes me one sadistic little mother scratcher.

Here I am sitting in my cubical typing what I think to be a witty retort. A kind of work day break from the dileria of office life and its strange inhabitants. An inspection from inside reveals the sort of villians and scum you'd half expect to see in a Mos Eisley cantina in a star wars movie.

These vultures of the work force always peering from the corner of there eyes towards you as you pass, or hold ideal conversation, listening and waiting.

The mere stopping by can net you a nasty twinge of a dagger in the back later as you hold a water cooler discussion to close a work foe upset at the boredom of there own life. Soon you are the talker. The idol and the lazy. The Wally.

So you try and escape for a few brief moments towards the safety of internet peers often feeling just as disgusted about there co-workers.

Then you hear of this life style outside the walls of an office. Where the retired dwell. Those mythical creatures who somehow managed to tuck enough away to leave behind the hell of the others.

I have begun to accept the role of Wally most inexplicably. I have lost the will to give a crap what these folks say or do. Not that I ever really did. I hear that apparently its more then the old and infirmed strolling around freely in the light of day out from under these horrible glowing tubes of death. Outside the green walls and pearl white of the desk.

Then I say you know what to hell with that. I love the easy life of the cube farm. The bull crap aside I rather enjoy knowing my little conversations annoy the supposedly busy other drones. I like green and pearl white.

I know I hate food service or some other bull crap late night job.

Ah... time to get back to work. Screw those lucky bastards outside. I got my cellmates and I got the other cellmates I hate. Either way inside or outside that is our culture. Now its time to inflict some annoying ITness onto these sons of bitches.

Muhahahaha....

[Bill Taylor]

It actually is the top 50% pay 96% the top 1% pay 34%.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/04in06tr.xls

[RSaunders]

Perhaps you are important enough that when your business needs to have a meeting folks always drive to your office/townhome. The folks on the road are the sales, tech support, and service people that are on they way to meetings with the likes of you. Next time you call a meeting, only invite the folks already "at work", and you'll have to ask your cat for legal advice.

[KD7KXW]

I swear to god you posted this blog a couple of days ago right after worlds most annoying man. either that or I had a dream in which you wrote the same blog.

[Jaynad]

CLEAR EXPLANATION OF TAX CUTS.........................
Sometimes politicians, journalists and others exclaim; "It's just a tax cut for the rich!" and it is just accepted to be fact, without questioning it But what does that really mean?

Just in case you are not completely clear on this issue, the following might help. Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20."Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. What about the other six men, those paying the tab? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20,"declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man," but he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, PhD
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia

[kelley]

I used to wonder about midday traffic when I was a college student and working at an evening newspaper. I often started work around 5 or 6 in the morning for a few hours, went to class, then was back at the paper at night to write features about high school sports or cover games. I then realized that I was part of the midday traffic, going to school and then heading home to do homework before going back to the office. It also finally occurred to me that lots of people work odd shifts and evenings in restaurants, theaters and stores.

Now that I'm self-employed and working from home, I'm again part of the midday rush. My wife and I always run errands when most people are at corporate jobs. We've gotten so spoiled, we tend to stay in on weekends to avoid crowds.

[car free since '93]

Fortunately for me, the bike lane is usually mine alone. I hate sharing.
CFS'93

[Gavin]

I don't buy the thing about the top 5% paying the tax. Or, if it is true, it'll be the bottom 60% of the top 5% who are paying or something like that. Very rich people don't pay a lot of tax, as a general rule. I don't know about Gates, because he is so exposed, but generally rich people put their money in tax havens. That's the way it works in the UK, anyway - our top dozen billionaires pay £7m tax or somesuch pathetically small amount of money.

As the gap between rich and poor grows ever wider (thanks to handing the running of both the US and the UK over to large corporations and parasites known as "consultants"), I have to wonder if, eventually, money will become totally irrelevant. I mean once it gets to the point that only about 10 people actually have any money at all, surely the rest of us will start bartering or introduce our own money..? It's only numbers, after all.

[Leora]

We are busy doing deliveries, thank you very much. And if you would keep your straw-hatted self at home and out of our way, we'd all appreciate it.

Thank you.
--your underappreciated delivery person.

[mel]

I have extreme robot fear. What you say has already crossed my mind. *laughs*

[Karl N]

"The roads are teeming with people who are obviously not working. How does our economy function?"

By getting suckers to work long days for us.

[SpongeJim]

Nah, nah... people not working isn't the surprise, it's the number of children not in school. That's always gotten me in big cities... TONS of kids around all day long! Oh, and couples "walking" their baby downtown... that's gotta mean "kept people", especially when they're pushing around designer Bugaboo strollers and such, and look to be barely 25, if that.

[Sam Vass]

The top 5% pay whatever percent of taxes! WRONG
Those who cite official statistics should examine the qualifying adjective. The usual term used is INCOME taxes. This enables them to ignore FICA which are Social Security and Medicare paid equally by employer and employee and are not included in the gross government income. In addition, corporate taxes are collected from consumers who by and large are probably in the lower 95%. Finally, the term income (whenever rates are discussed) leaves out much as they leave out the qualifier TAXABLE income thus ignoring IRA and 401k earnings, etc. sam

[RavenBlack]

Maybe those people are all couriers delivering people's stuff they ordered on the internet because they didn't want to drive in all that traffic.

[Billy B]

I'm not at work, and I'm not on the roads unless I must be. I don't like going out on the roads, it's just a bunch of monkeys fucking around. Ironically, that is exactly what keeps the economy going. Well, until you destroy the planet, then you won't be here so it will be a problem anymore.

It wouldn't be a problem now if there were a lot less monkeys fucking around. Support birth control.
Billy B

[KnightRider]

"I predict that in the future, all work will be done by three groups: Robots will do the routine work, artists will do what the robots can’t, and lawyers will sue them."

Robots are already replacing artists. I could go on for five or six pages about my intense disdain for rap music, but I'll just let it suffice to say....
Rap is not Music and is not created by artists. It's created by a computer that synthesizes a beat or sound that may or may not have been previously played by a human, then digitally sampled and laid down on a repeating loop. Then a dipsh*t who calls himself an artist steps up to the microphone and starts to speak in Rhyme, calling this something like "Poetry". A rap artist is NOT a poet.
If Rap is Music, the terrorists have already won. Then the dipsh*t rap "artist" voted.

[niCk(mem beth)]

Can I wear a baseball cap?

We all once dreamed about how computers would make our jobs much easier. In reality, it made all our jobs more complicated because now we can do so much more work in less time, and we are also responsible for the mundane task that someone else used to do for us. And don't get me started with e-mail, nobody uses it correctly, so it is always just full of crap, instead of better communication, it is now worse. Don't get me started with the freaking cell phone shit.

I expect the future robot world will be much the same. WE THINK it will make life easier, but it won't, it will just make more complicated work trying to keep the freaking robots operational. It never ends.

The more we work to make out lives easier, the more complicated it gets.

"I would be an optimist, but it wouldn't do any good"

[Gabe]

I noticed that too on my days off! Who are these people? WHY ARE THEY NOT WORKING? Why is there a TRAFFIC JAM downtown at 10 in the morning?

[canajian]

You are wrong again. The robots will also be doing the suing, and collect their legal fees. People driving around in straw hats will call themselves artists too, as robots cannot do what they do.

When the robots start to drive around in straw hats, that's when we get into real trouble.

[JO]

It occurs to me that if the top 5% is paying most of the taxes, its because most of the money has now moved into less that 5% of the population. People who work for a living these days, present company excepted, are just not making enough money to pay all that much tax. Walmart where I live pays $6.50 per hour. It the top 5% wants to spread out the tax burden, they will have to spread out the profits. Say EXXON for example, maybe they will have to be content with 5 billion per quarter profit and pay the roughnecks a little more than $8 per hour.

[Terry Murphy]

There is a bigger worry. All the one tax payer in the USA would have to do is lobby to incorporate some twisty bits into your roads - we call them bends in Europe, and the poor handling of USA built cars will take out half of the population thus saving him a fortune in social services cost. He can buy a European car, designed to turn and go around bends rather than straight on into the nearest tree, building, rock face or other object that is lethal when approached at speed, and thus be completely safe.

[Jan]

I live in a thriving community that has recently become popular with retirees. We love our new neighbors, but there's one thing that drives me nuts.

I get half an hour for lunch. All these retired folks who could go to lunch at ANY TIME they choose pick the same half hour I have, leading to long lines at every restaurant. I now have to pack a lunch or skip the meal altogether. Going to a restaurant is out of the question.

Please, folks, consider those of us that are still slaving away in the workplace, and go to lunch either half an hour earlier or half an hour later! I miss my Stoplight subs!

[Joel]

Aren't you too rich to believe in bread and circuses?

[guntherothk]

C'mon Scott, be an engineer for a minute.

First, 5% of the population is on vacation at any time if they take 2 weeks vacation. Then you have the percentage of the population who is coming or going to a doctor or destist appointment. Then you get the spouses of single-income families, and last but hardly least people who drive around for a living like sales folks. Oh yeah, and some people gotta work second and third shift jobs, so they're able to be out and about in the daylight. And the retired, in their straw hats.

Then there are the people who have already been replaced by robots. Being unemployed, they have nothing to do but enjoy the fruits of their non-labor until they succumb to starvation.

In the bright future of a single rich taxpayer and humanoid robots, you can expect a brief period of high traffic as the starving human population looks for work.

Fortunately, this period won't last all that long, as the average human only takes about 10 weeks to starve to death, assuming good hydration. The population remaining after this time consists of lawyers, who can be killed out of hand, and the many personal servants of that single rich taxpayer, who can do the killing in their spare time. This time period will look like any number of sci-fi movies that have already been produced.

After that, the last gorillas, let out of zoos because there's no one to visit them, can evolve intelligence independently, or perhaps the robots will train and nurture them, since they will have nothing else to do.

The single rich taxpayer will die accidentally. At the age of 56, he will accidentally aspirate a bit of the pina colada he was drinking, and eventually succumb to pneumonia. Fortunately, the government beaurocracy, run by bots, will continue to tax his estate, also run by robots. This can go on almost indefinitely, depending on the quality of construction of the bots involved.

[Sondra]

We are a Loooooooooong way from perfecting robots to the point that I might want one in my general vecinity.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/16/carnivore_atm/

The kid in the article needs a good swift kick, but the list at the bottom of the page makes my point.

[MikeR]

I'm starting a straw hat manufacturing business run by robots.

[Naed]

I know! I took friday off because my parents came up to visit, and there was more traffic than anytime I go to or from work normally! What do these people do?! (Yes, I understand in this case I was contributing to it, but still. I'm now curious if it's always that way)

[Rick]

I don’t know Scott. If straw hats become all the rage my male pattern baldness will be disguised and I might be presented with more breeding opportunities. That may not be a good thing. I’m a borderline pedophile… (or am I?)

http://rickbell.typepad.com

[Al_Bert]

That's the craziest load of crap I've ever heard!

But I'm going to leverage my stock portfolio towards a few straw hat companies just in case...

[Beaker]

I think we're looking in different crystal balls again, Scott. My view of the future is a hell of a lot different, and I've had a reasonable track record. (available for a nominal fee of 1.2 billion har!)

Anyway, the way I see things is that people are going to be on the road less often. Once the current generation dies out, the kids are gonna be running things. They don't wanna move any more than they have to. If it can't be done on-line, it's not worth doing. There is a reason why the obesity rate has gone up so high so fast.

You got the robot and lawyer part right though. Intellectual property is going to be the only thing left to fight over.

That's the second reason I don't want to live beyond one hundred. I don't want to live in a world where I'm so dependent on machines that I need a mechanic just to go to the bathroom. (The first reason being that no person should have to see bell bottom pants in style three times in one life.)

[Paul]

I was thinking the exact same thing at a baseball game last week. The ballpark was packed for a 1:30 game on a Tuesday afternoon. I was wondering, don't these people have jobs they should be working at? Also, don't these kids have classes they should be going too?

[Scott2]

The top 5% pay most of the taxes correct but they also make most of the money, and on a percentage ratio they pay far less of their whole income to taxes than regular workers. The wonders of creative book keeping and money management.
If the average tax burden of the individual is 40% (I live in Canada and that is mostly a random number), the richer percent probably pay closer to 10% of their income. That being said in actual dollar amounts that 10% is huge.

Most everyone probably knows all that but I hadn't seen the comment made yet so figured I'd rush in to state the obvious in good form.

For most artists the future you predict is nice Scott, as right now they are mostly working retail jobs where they feel like robots.

[CLB]

When gas prices reach the point of needing a loan to fill up your car, the roads may empty out a bit. ;)

[DML]

Whenever I have a day off and have to do something else in normal working hours (shopping, etc), I too am amazed by how many people milling about. I wonder how these millers support themselves since it's obvious they don't work. I see these people getting out of their 7 series BMWs to shop in high end Los Angeles stores at 10:30 AM Tuesday freakin' morning. The math just doesn't compute for me. How are they doing this and how can I become one of them.

[LA Clay]

With your track record should you be predicting the future like this? My luck I'll be turned into a robot.

[Daves not here]

Maybe all those people are wondering, why are YOU on the road!

Dave

[Fred]

Firstly. I attend a place of work but that is not the same a working. I guess that those who don't go to work are just being more honest.
Secondly. The reason rich people are rich is because they find (leagal?)ways to avoid paying tax, so who is the one taxpayer going to be?

[Chris Lusk]

Scott (we're old friends right? Hehe),

The ammount of people that are driving around durring the day do indeed have a job. You have seen the Truman Show correct? I'm not hinting at anything, but that was probably made as a documentory to your life. But this is just a much larger scale. I think I'm already giving away to much.

[HandsUp]

Scott are you messing with the time space continuum again?
I could swear I saw this blog entry yesterday.

[Mr. Wampus]

In the city where I live, on the rare occasions when I need to drive around in the middle of the work day, most of the peole driving around are really old (hence the straw hats?) and are driving enormous old automobiles. I didn't even know Cadillac MADE a model called the "Titanic." These folks drive around during the day in their Titanic cars looking THROUGH the steering wheel and driving 26 mph on the expressway... with a turn signal on... and a foot on the brake pedal.

And I thought rush hour was bad. It's nothing compared to the middle of the day with the ancient people. Oh, and I don't live in Florida, so that isn't the answer either.

[wrench]

The show with that plot was called "Space: Above and Beyond." Actually, my scenario disposes with the artists (what part of the economy is driven by art?) and the only people working are those that know how to fix the super-intelligent robots. Thusly, my job is secure, at least if I figure out how to build them in the first place. BWahhahaha.

[Eli]

...Isn't the US at a 4.9% unemployed rate? Where are these people coming from?

[Anfauglir]

There's one heck of a lot of people who work who don't work 9 to 5 jobs. If you want to take public transport, eat, see a film, drink in a bar, go to the theatre, or in ANY way dispose of cash after 5pm, there needs to be a vast army of folk who work into the evening.

Then you have the people who work through the night - the guys at the power stations, TV stations, the people writing the news for the next day's papers, printers, bakers, cops, nurses, delivery drivers.....

Sometimes I wonder if us 9 to 5 guys are a minority. Plus you have to remember that all those people you are watching, wondering why they aren't working, are thinking the exact same thing right back at you!

[gorgeoux]

Strangely, the same thing happens in Romania every working day. I've never come up with an explanation. I thought, however, that it's only our disease.

[Nelson]

I've been trying to start my own business so like you I'm working out of the house for the most of the day. When I left my 9-5 I started to notice the same thing, everyone is out during the day. Not just on the roads but you can goto into boston and see lots of people walking around. I also saw a bunch of kids during school hours going to the local YMCA to play Basketball. Does make you wonder what everyone is doing.

[Terry F]

I too have tried to figure this out. I've come up with many theories about why these people are on the road when they should be at work. I've even thought of myself being one of them given I am on the road at the same time but they can't all be doing a mid day task.
I'm nowhere close to the top 5% of income earners and I'm paying lots of tax so it has to be some sort of a media miscalculation. As we know they are not to be trusted when it comes to statistics.

[Gabe]

Well, the robots are sure to become lazy over time as well. The only problem is, they won;t be able to have straw hats, we'll already own them all.

[gus]

We already got one super rich guy! But is Bill paying taxes?

[Dan Roy]

I'd say the strangest thing about this blog is the number of comments, or more exactly, the lack thereof, and I quote "WHAT THE %$#@&???"
Do people suddenly have better things to do than figure out a clever comment on dilbertblog?
I can only assume they where out drivning, looking for straw hats.

[Dave]

On the off chance that you want a serious answer, there's lots of reasons why people would have the time to be on the road in the middle of the day. You've got retired people, unemployed people (who are looking for work), people who work in retail (and so their day off may well be in the middle of the week), stay-at-home parents (who work from home, part-time, or not at all), people who work 2nd shift, full-time college students, high school students (if it's early afternoon), people whose jobs involve a lot of local travel, people on vacation, and people who are taking a sick day. And unless you're in New York City, most of them have cars.

[Adam Selvidge]

"...alter the DNA of apes to make them super intelligent, breed millions of them..."

Skipped all the "Planet Of The Apes" movies and TV series did we?

[Paul S]

Substitute "immigrants" for "robots" and "manicures" for "straw hats" and you will have accurately described the current economy of Los Angeles.

[hockey monkey]

That's funny...artists working...that'll be the day.

Wow, it's interesting I found this. It's not in the RSS feed for some reason. Anyways, I believe that all those people on the roads might actually be working. A large percentage of people need to actually be driving from one place to another as part of their job.
As for the robots... I think that would be great. Less work, more games and fun? W