Posted on 04/05/2015 5:14:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Robopocalypse for workers may be inevitable. In this vision of the future, super-smart machines will best humans in pretty much every task. A few of us will own the machines, a few will work a bit — perhaps providing "Made by Man" artisanal goods — while the rest will live off a government-provided income. Silicon-based superintelligence and robots will dramatically alter labor markets — to name but one example, the most common job in most U.S. states probably will no longer be truck driver.
But what about right now? If you're unemployed or working part-time instead of full-time, or haven't seen a raise in years, should you blame technology?
Yes, says venture capitalist and former Intel executive Bill Davidow. In a provocative piece for Harvard Business Review, "The Internet Has Been a Colossal Economic Disappointment," Davidow makes a strong claim: "For all its economic virtues, the internet has been long on job displacement and short on job creation. As a result, it is playing a central role in wage stagnation and the decline of the middle class."
Just look at how Amazon is disrupting brick-and-mortar retailing. And even though tech firms such as Google and Facebook generate huge revenues, they employ comparatively few people versus industrial giants of the past, such as IBM or General Motors. In the 1970s, General Motors employed more than 600,000 people, 10 times more Google and Facebook combined.
To accept Davidow's broad conclusion, though, one also has to believe workers across many sectors would be a lot better off today if the internet had not been invented. That's an unlikely counterfactual. Just look at how the labor market has been doing. The U.S. economy has generated 3.3 million jobs over the past year, the best 12-month performance since 2000.
(Excerpt) Read more at theweek.com ...
You have to pay nothing, don't buy - don't pay. That is how tariffs your work you f-ing idiot.
You are arguing with a figment of your own imagination. I cannot help you.
I don’t need to prove anything to anyone. Any one looking at my past comments would know that I’m not a socialist.
I don’t believe in crony capitalism. I also believe that many multinational companies have no loyalty to America.
I also care about the well-being of my fellow countrymen.
Does that make me a socialist in your eyes?
Tell it to Karl, your hero.
They protect domestic producers from low-priced competition. In other words, the domestic producers get to keep their prices higher.
So, genius, explain to me how "not buying" is gonna' work.
I guess it all depends on how much of my money you want.
Offshoring is a cancer symptom, not an attempted treatment.
The cancer is the Left. Their intended damage is done. There will be no significant on-shoring of lost manufacturing, now - regardless of policy changes.
I see a lot of nostalgia for the post WWII-era crossed with nativism on these threads. When the world was destroyed, and the United States bestrode the global economy like a colossus. When an assembly line job in Detroit could buy a new car and a four bedroom house. As if that brief 50's-60's interlude was some sort of economic norm.
Well, guess what? The world ain't destroyed any more. And contrary to popular belief, they are pretty damned smart. They have learned how to make better and higher quality products than we can, in most industries.
I've done business with garment factories in Guangzhou. I've done business with garment factories in Los Angeles. Care to guess which ones rely on Third World-level workers and working conditions? Did you think that shiny "Made in the USA" label means "Made by middle class white people in nice, clean factories in North Carolina?"
Impose all the tariffs you want - the factories aren't coming back here. The damage is done. The art is lost. Today's American doesn't know how to make things - only how to consume them. A massive and highly unlikely shift in tax and regulatory policy could make some difference - in 10-15 years.
There are no quick fixes. Waving the magic tariff wand would do nothing at this point but destroy thousands of American small business importers (and their hundreds of thousands of employees).
But keep attacking the symptom, if you want. It's good theater, but about as meaningless as a Mitch McConnell speech on ethical government.
These issues are linked by the desire for cheap labor.
Free Traders try to keep the issues separate because they don’t want people to wake up.
They also never address the crime issue or other social costs of illegal immigration which are very high.
At this point in time, we need to put American’s first.
Once more time I will attempt to penetrate your thick dense skull.
Domestic manufactures COMPETE WITH EACH OTHER. That is the mechanism that keeps prices down you stupid < expletive deleted >. If domestic manufactures collude to price fix we have anti trust laws to take care of that.
How < expletive deleted > stupid are you?
I don’t want any of your money, I have plenty of my own that I earned through hard work.
I want to see my fellow countrymen do well. You only care about your wallet, that is very clear from your arguments.
PS: American Free traitors will swing one day. I'd have good bug out plan if I were you.
If sugar companies are price fixing then laws are bring broken.
Ok, so you “got yours,” and you are merely trying to prevent me from “getting mine.”
If you are unaware of how the domestic sugar industry operates behind its veil of tariffs, then you are an imbecile, and should probably disqualify yourself from these threads altogether.
I do not think basing our manufacturing trade policy based on one agricultural item is the right thing to do.
I mean, we've got Lewinsky giving the President a ******* in the Oval Office, and he stops to take a call from Fanjul (or whatever his name is).
Why do you think manufacturers act differently?
Thats right flatlander. A newb, since....
Bingo.
You nailed it. Completely.
That is what is happening. There is a segment of the free trade crowd, who is making lots of money on overseas production.
However there is a (huge) segment of American workers, who have lost their jobs.
Those people, will vote democrat in the future.
That is what we are approaching, a completely democrat voting block.
I completely understand why democrats support our current trade situation, since it helps them enormously.
However the GOP is on the wrong side.
Either the GOP gets with it, or we need to find representatives who do, in another party.
Not at some time in some abstract time in the future.
Right now.
Since you became someone’s alt account? Piss off.
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