Jim O'Reilly

Egalitarian, anti-Imperialist, peace thru cooperation, real democracy, No to Oligarchy!
MA Global Political Economy. Book:

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

Inequality can't ever be a mere side-effect of a broader system; wherever it exists it IS the system. It's but another word for concentrated power & as such has ruled mankind over the entire span of civilization.

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

@aprajitanefes @BernieSanders Absolutely right. The problem isn't so much AI per se, it's AI within the capitalist ownership paradigm.

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

While AI could be of benefit in a socialist world of public & democratic ownership, when contained within the capitalist paradigm, it becomes suicide for the non-owning majority & a sure path to oligarchic tyranny. Radical centrism indeed--radically centered against the people!

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

Put simply, Tony Blair's 'Agenda' is nothing but an age-old attack on behalf of the ownership class AGAINST humanity and the British people by one of its skilled propagandists. It needs to be rejected out of hand.

His talk of promoting AI is particularly dangerous.
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[Tony Blair Institute for Global Change @InstituteGC]

https://t.co/27lbhXTsjk

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

@DFrankRobi99950 @Saganismm That's far too broad a statement as it depends who is taxed. What's violent is inequality. Spending and tax policy s/b designed to assure prosperity for the bottom 90% and to substantially reduce the anti-democratic parasitism of the rich.

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

@edrichards714 @SMS3504 @WallStreetApes But the 'average Joe or Mary' ARE harmed by structural inequality, assuming by definition they're in the bottom 80%.

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

@SMS3504 @WallStreetApes The problem isn't the $9 cup of coffee, it's the structure of inequality within which that $9 cup exists. A dystopia where the top 10% own almost all productive assets & the bottom 80% nothing. We don't have markets, we have oligarchy & this is how they work.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

The math on a 24-hour day stopped working decades ago and most people just never run the numbers.

8 hours sleep. 8 hours work. That's 16, before anything else.

Add the modern requirements that nobody counts. 1 hour of real exercise. 30 minutes of getting ready and showering. 30 to 90 minutes of commute. Cooking and eating three meals, or shopping and prepping for them, is 90 minutes minimum if you're being honest. Dishes, laundry, basic household upkeep, hygiene, packing tomorrow's bag is another hour.

That's 5 to 6 hours of obligations the original framework never accounted for.

Running total: 21 to 22 hours. With a 45-minute one-way commute and a real kitchen, you have under 90 minutes left.

Inside that window you're supposed to read books, see friends, date, pursue hobbies, learn skills, watch the shows everyone references at work, and call your parents.

The "eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest" framework comes from Robert Owen in 1817, written for a factory worker who walked to the mill, ate whatever was in front of him, and didn't lift weights. We kept his arithmetic and added 5 hours of modern obligations on top.

The people who appear to "have it all" are doing one of five things: outsourcing domestic labor to a spouse or paid help, cutting sleep, cutting exercise, having no kids, or living in a 30-square-meter apartment with no maintenance burden. Usually multiple. The math is the same for everyone, the cuts are just hidden.

The honest answer is you choose. Most people cut sleep and pay for it in cognition. Some cut exercise and pay for it in long-term health. The cultured ones cut the culture and read 5 books a year instead of 30.

There is no version where you don't choose.

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

The only 'beneficial' & thus 'profitable' workers are 1) those who directly produce goods & services for the owners & 2) those workers that provide goods & services to keep those workers alive.

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

"The argument is straightforward. Every company replacing workers with AI is also eliminating its own future customers. Laid off workers stop spending."

That this is important to the Ruling Class is a fallacy. Workers spend only what they're paid in wages & are thus a net zero.

[Yasir Ai @AiwithYasir]

🚨BREAKING: Two researchers from UPenn and Boston University just published a paper that should be uncomfortable reading for every CEO automating their workforce right now.

The argument is straightforward. Every company replacing workers with AI is also eliminating its own future customers. Laid off workers stop spending. Enough of them stop spending and nobody can afford to buy anything. The companies that fired everyone end up selling into an economy with no purchasing power left.

Every executive can see this. The math is not complicated. But here is why nobody stops.

If you do not automate, your competitor does. They cut costs, lower prices, take your market share, and you collapse anyway. So every company automates knowing it is collectively destructive because the alternative is dying alone while everyone else survives. The researchers proved this is a Prisoner's Dilemma playing out in real time.

The numbers are already moving. Block cut nearly half its 10,000 employees this year. Jack Dorsey said AI made those roles unnecessary and that within the next year the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion. Salesforce replaced 4,000 customer support agents with AI. Goldman Sachs deployed a coding tool that lets one engineer do the work of five. Over 100,000 tech workers were laid off in 2025 and AI was cited as the primary driver in more than half those cases. 80% of US workers hold jobs with tasks susceptible to AI automation.

The researchers tested every proposed solution. Universal basic income does not change a single company's incentive to automate. Capital income taxes adjust profit levels but not the per-task decision to replace a human. Collective bargaining cannot hold because automating is always the dominant strategy.

They also identified what they call a Red Queen effect. Better AI does not solve the problem, it accelerates it. Every company chases faster automation to gain market share over rivals but at the end everyone has automated equally, the gains cancel out, and the only thing left is more destroyed demand.

The one thing the math says could work is a Pigouvian automation tax. A per-task charge that forces companies to account for the demand they destroy each time they replace a worker.

The conclusion is that this is not a transfer of wealth from workers to owners. Both sides lose. Workers lose income. Companies lose customers. It is a deadweight loss with no market mechanism to stop it on its own.

(Link in the comment)

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

Workers in themselves are simply not profitable to the ownership class. The revenue from sales simply offsets the expense of the wage.
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[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

@MushtaqBilalPhD Seems to me that academic papers should be free.

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

@AustrianEcon201 @texasrunnerDFW No problem: slash the military industrial complex and massively increase taxes on the rich.

[Christopher Hale @ChristopherHale]

In his strongest condemnation yet of the Trump-Vance war against Iran, Pope Leo XIV said today:

“We are surrounded by a delusion of omnipotence that’s becoming increasingly unpredictable and aggressive.”

“We are met by threats instead of invitations to come together.

“Those who pray don’t threaten death. Death enslaves those who have turned their backs on God and turned themselves and their own power into a mute, blind, and deaf idol.

“They demand the whole world bends their knee. Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war!

“True strength is shown in serving life!”

[Pope Leo XIV @Pontifex]

Hundreds of millions of people throughout the world are immersed in extreme poverty. Yet, disproportionate wealth remains in the hands of a few. It is an unjust scenario, in the face of which we cannot fail to question ourselves and commit to change things. There is no lack of resources at the root of disparities, but the need to address solvable problems related to a more equitable distribution of wealth, to be achieved with moral sense and honesty.

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

@JPChamberlainX To be clear, Spain is your enemy because it doesn't support attacking Iran or Lebanon?

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

@Carlin4USSenate Hedge funds & private equity, yes, they are massive problems. But low interest rate loans? How absurd to think a solution to housing affordability is to pay bankers yet more in interest & fees!

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

@Thinker7777777 @Roshan_Rinaldi It's called class warfare.

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

@Thinker7777777 @Roshan_Rinaldi The top 10% of the US population own essentially all productive assets while the bottom 80% almost nothing. What's really meant when we hear it s/b the responsibility of the state is it s/b the responsibility of the asset-less 80%.

[Roshan Rinaldi @Roshan_Rinaldi]

The White House deleted this embarrassing video. So whatever you do- * DON'T REPOST IT. * Donald wouldn't like it if you hit "repost."

Trump: We can't take care of daycare. We're a big country. We're fighting wars. It's not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these things.

[Jim O'Reilly @JimPOReilly1]

@Uncle_Sam_Show @factpostnews It s/b managed at the local level but funding s/b nat'l so as to assure it's based on ability to pay. I don't have young kids anymore but it's the price I think we should all pay for a decent society. And taxes wouldn't have to go up if we just cut the war machine.