Some folks do indeed fight change...
Posted on 02/03/2014 2:15:40 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Ten years ago it might have seemed far-fetched that a customer could order food in a restaurant without speaking to anyone. But it's a reality now as service employers across the country—including Chili's, Chevys Fresh Mex and California Pizza Kitchen—introduce tabletop ordering devices. A few clicks on an iPad-like device and the food is on its way.
Technology has made these changes possible, but that's not what's driving their implementation. Steady federal and state increases to the minimum wage have forced employers in retail and service industries to rely on technology as the government makes entry-level labor more expensive. Now Democrats are pushing to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 from $7.25 at the behest of President Obama, who argued in his State of the Union address that the increase would "help families." Lawmakers should consider the technology trend a warning.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates made the connection in a recent interview on MSNBC. Asked if he supported a higher minimum wage, Mr. Gates urged caution and said the policy would create an incentive for employers to "buy machines and automate things."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
The future American Juan Doe worker will be running treadmills to power the machine that took his job.
Except when Allen Bradley performs it’s unholy acts of buying up everyone who makes an alternative product at a lower price. AB (Rockwell) is brutal. Then again, they have armies of engineers that make really reliable stuff. Their overheads must be shocking.
There is another, more important factor at play. The robot can work 24/7. The person can work only 29.
Although a difficult calculation across the spectrum, across a single payroll, it might very well be economic to absorb the wage increase while using robots to keep the hours down. A robot assist to a raised minimum wage person may well be a very economic choice
Yet to be determined ...... is robot maintenance more expensive than mandated Obamacare
That doesn’t make financial or economic sense. If a competitor innovates a product that is competitive with AB’s product, but at a lower price, it will always be better for AB to offer that product post take-over. The new lower price keeps competition away.
High prices cure themselves. There must be another reason that AB can sustain such high prices over a long period of time.
Drives last decades unless you throw 1,200VAC spikes at a 480 VAC drive. Which also seems to happen every few years. They go off like popcorn. But that's not AB's fault. Their Kinetix lines are fussy and have a higher failure rate than their basic Powerflex 10's, 40's and 700's. Those are like god declared them immortal.
Do you mean that there will be no positions for teachers or managers or salespeople or business people because automated systems will replace human positions entirely for those positions? I am not sure that would be the case int he near future, since again even when it comes to teaching, it is well understood that things like the Kahn Academy are not even meant to replace effective classroom teaching and are not considered a complete replacement for classroom teaching that is done effectively. And online courses still need people teaching them just as a regular classroom would.
The Law of Unintended Consequences.....ain’t it a bitch?
Smart people will do fine...it’s the stupid people I worry about, and time was there were enough jobs for stupid people to do. Those are the jobs that are going away.
Idle hands are the Devil’s Playground.
If education and management and sales can go completely online and be performed entirely by robots, then as I said above, there are tons of other jobs where the same is true, Business, accounting, computing, counseling, psychology, and tons more that one could come up with. And if tens of millions Americans who were specialized in all these jobs do have to learn entirely new trades, what would they do for income in the meantime, given our economy is so weak it could not provide enough jobs for even the majority of them while they learn new trades? That is why in our economic and political times even technological advancement is mostly bad news.
Employers will do anything for cheap low wage labor...
They’ve sent thousands of companies overseas to Communist China to take advantage of their 1930s labor rates...They’ve bribed, and bank rolled corrupt politicians and their campaigns to ensure those borders remain wide open...
They have no desire to have their low wage golden goose killed.
Profits and power regardless of consequences.
"Arise, ye prisoners of starvation...."
That's NOT what I said.
Going "online" is NOT the same thing as "being performed entirely by robots."
And when technology requires the transition to new ways of working, it doesn't occur all at once.
Look at the way people adapted to using PC's. It made their jobs easier, it didn't take them away.
I don't think the future is "bad" news.
I think that is just one person's outlook when that person has a negative attitude caused by fear of change. Fear of change is a perfectly normal thing, but it isn't always rational. And whether one is afraid of change or not...it is still coming.
So we better make the best of it.;-)
Except for those who are brain damaged, there are no stupid people.
Only lazy people and those who are willfully stupid (like Liberals) are what we normally call stupid.
So you think there will be enough jobs in the future for those who are not of the entitlement mentality and willing to work on whatever field they are capable of working on? And that everyone who wants to support themselves on an income will be able to do it?
And btw, change is not always inevitable, people who are determined to fight change can always do it. Some countries do it all the time and America in some ways has learned how to fight certain kinds of changes too. If the fears I raised are true, Americans may already be looking for ways to effectively block those changes too if they believe it will do much more harm than good.
Some folks do indeed fight change...
Have you noticed that the majority of Americans, in some ways, are becoming exactly like them and that there is indeed a reason for that?
Being afraid of change is a very natural thing.
But since the future brings change and we will have to adapt, the lesson to be taken away is "get over it."
Technology can be used for good or bad. Humans must reject the bad if civilization is to survive.
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