Losing America's Livelihood

The New American ^ | 1/26/04 | William Jasper

[DannyTN]

"So why, again, is it perfectly OK for someone to lose their job to automation, and a horrible crime for someone to lose their job to an Indian guy?"

Several reasons...

• Losing the manufacturing base, loses engineering, design and management jobs... automation doesn't, it keeps the knowledge here.
• Automation represents an increase in US productivity. Losing the job to an indian guy is a decrease in US productivity.
• With automation you are producing and selling goods, enabling increased trade. Losing the manufacturing base, you are producing nothing, selling nothing, forcing a decrease in trade.

  Both cause severe dislocations in the economy. But losing to the Indian is far worse, because it's not just the manufacturing you lose. You lose all associated jobs and knowledge. And eventually it won't even be a US firm that is producing.

  It is well documented that competitors tend to sprout up in or near the location of the original manufacturer. Usually from former employees who recognize an unserved market or untapped efficiencies. This will happen in foreign lands as well. So the US companies will not hold on to their products once they are placed overseas.

[ninenot]

Dear John HK

If you read the article, you will note that the US TAXPAYER is on the hook for over 16 BILLION we have shoved directly into enterprises which COMPETE with the US TAXPAYER.

Who are you trying to kid?

I'd rather pay a tariff so my neighbor is WORKING than pay taxes to finance the success of PRChina.

[Redbob]

"So why, again, is it perfectly OK for someone to lose their job to automation, and a horrible crime for someone to lose their job to an Indian guy?"

Now there's a great question!

Fact is, though, a job lost to automation is still being done in this country, and it would at least be an American who programs the automation, who maintains the equipment, who transports the finished product, etc.
Not so for a job overseas.

But all you folks lamenting the loss of jobs: Do you look at the labels in your clothes and in your shoes, and only buy those made in THIS country?
Do you drive only American cars?
If not, you can point the finger at yourselves.

[Deliberator]

Can we start calling tarriffs what they are, which are "taxes"?

So, you're advocating tax increases on Free Republic.

I could support tariffs IF every dollar of tariff income to the government was offset by a dollar decrease in income taxes.

[Clemenza]

Most "American" cars are built with foreign components. Many "foreign" cars are actually made here in the US of A (my sister lives near a BMW factory in South Carolina) with US components. Its not our fault that management in Detroit puts out such crap.

Industrial employment is dropping WORLDWIDE (in Brazil, Mexico and most of Asia) due to higher worker productivity and automation. This is a fact of life that aint gonna change for you LUDDITES!

[RightWhale]

NASA has a new line item in fiscal '05. The new space race is robotics, just as the original space race was rockets. Our home appliances are already heavily robotized, but this is nothing compared to what could be robotized. We will service the machines, as usual, unless we can robotize that as well. Robotics is the best post-industrial economy we can have.

[RightWhale]

now almost owned by Japan and China

Fuzzy logic caught on in Japan and China. So did cold fusion.

[RightWhale]

computer programming and mechanical engineering

Robotics is 95% programming. Our only competition in programming is India. In spite of some Japanese robots that got high visibility press, America is about a light year ahead of everybody else in robotics, and we ought to widen the lead.

[RightWhale]

Yes, you are exactly correct. But with the new NASA goals, robotics will see a strong emphasis. Robotics is not new, but it is seeing a rebirth now. The space race will be a robotics race, in fact, space exploration has been mainly robotics for quite a while, but it will be even more so as we build a manned base on the moon and then on Mars--using robotics. When the base is built by robotics and ready, then we will go there and occupy the station.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

But they're not coming after ME!!! So who cares?

It's called competition.

In a free market, the job goes to the lowest bidder.

Unless you're a union thug.

[RightWhale]

whoever has the cheapest labor to manufacture robotics

Robots are cheap, the main ingredient is mental. This is something our post industrial cottage industry can do very well. There might not be any mass manufacture of robots. Each robot would be custom, even if the chassis is multipurpose.

[Arthalion]

Robotics is the best post-industrial economy we can have.

Speaking as a computer programmer who not only studied robotics in college, but still dabbles in the field: There is no long term future in robotics. Short term suffers from the same problems as most IT area's, in that foreign competition will prevent Americans from profiting from it in the long term. Yes, you can do research, and maybe you'll even develop a useful design that people will actually want to own...but what then? The U.S. is rapidly becoming a post-industrial nation so your robots wont be BUILT here. It will be built on a manufacturing line in China, using software perfected by Indian programmers and firmware developed and tested in Russia.

And how about a career servicing those robots? Since robots are basically nothing more than computers with fancy appendages, you simply need to plug your robot into a phone line to have Sajif...erm, I mean "Bob", in India do your maintenance and firmware upgrades. Heck, if NASA can reprogram the Spirit rover...a robot...from millions of miles away, we surely don't need an "overpaid and unproductive" American to fix our own when one of those cheap Indians will do the same job at a fraction of the cost.

For the few people lucky enough to invent a useful and marketable robot be plenty of money to be made...but that's always beent he case with the inventors and visionaries. For the other 200 million plus working Americans facing economic collapse, robotics is about as useful as warts.

[GingisK]

...America is about a light year ahead of everybody else in robotics...

We are also light years ahead in software technology. I've seen firsthand the crap that passes for software from India. It dosen't make any difference. India is the Walmart of software, including that 95% portion of robotics. People want "cheap", not quality. You would be making a big mistake to place your bets in robotics. It is no different than the type of software I do. (Embedded) I check out the job ads regularly in all disciplines involving software. The jobs aren't there. They aren't going to be there.

Those who attend engineering school now are in for a shock when they discover that they will all be competing for a total of 150 in the entire Nation.

Have a nice dream.

[RightWhale]

You are right. I am looking at spinoffs from the new NASA space program. If we are foredoomed to a life of TV entertainment and hedonism, then robotics would only hasten our decline. It's hard to say what the work ethic is anymore; factory jobs seem to be passing into history.

[RightWhale]

they will all be competing for a total of 150

The nature of work is changing, and the idea of a job may be something also passing into history. Jobs were created with the American industrial revolution. The revolution is over, and jobs of that kind are nearly over. So what now?

[jpsb]

Please suggest a book on programming robots. I'm interested and have a few ideas. I have always wanted to build smart machines but don't know where to being to learn how.

[Protagoras]

More jobs are lost to protectionism than creative destruction. And the latter creates jobs, the former cannot.

[jpsb]

Taxing foreigners is a very popular idea. They (foreigners) pay we (Americans) don't, I like it!

[Protagoras]

Unless you're a union thug.

Or a government thug.

[Arthalion]

So what now?

Sadly, I think I know. When all of the good paying jobs go away, with them will go our economic base. Even those low paying WalMart jobs that people complain about will vanish as people discover that even WalMart is too expensive for them. People will, however, still need things so you'll probably then see the return of the proprietorship...everyone will have their own little business providing needed goods to the people around them who require them, in exchange for their own goods (e.g. we'll lose 200 years of economic advancement). Those that don't have the skill to do that will starve. The government will implode from the loss of tax revenue, welfare and SS will end, people will die by the millions, our military will rot, and our nation will disintegrate.

My wife tells me that I'm a pessimist. I say "Why take chances, arm yourself anyway".