Solutions to Automation

Discussion in 'Labor & Employment' started by Guest03, Aug 4, 2015.

  1. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Sorry I just find that totally unrealistic. There are about 3 1/2 million truck drivers (not counting the other types of drivers). They're not going to become bonsai tree trimmers, or doctors.
     
  2. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    I think you've hit on the problem. The indifference to the lives of the working class and what happens to them. I've been noticing that more and more lately. Let them eat cake, or in this case, welfare. Sounds like a poor societal plan to me.​
     
  3. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    I agree. We've done a truly crappy job of noticing where our economy is going and what is required to succeed in that.

    When we moved from an agrarian economy to one based on manufacturing, we were smart enough to make some significant changes. Just one is that we recognized that to compete we needed to have more than an 8th grade education. So, we provided that. In fact, we insisted on it, making it the LAW!

    Now, manufacturing is leveling off and information technology is advancing. We're figuring out how to automate stuff we never would have believed could be automated. Industry is looking for people who can design and operate these systems, and a myriad other new jobs which require different training and education than we provided for a manufacturing economy. Also, our economy is now moving fast enough that most people can not count on their job even existing for a full career - which means that people need broader preparation. We can't have people watching their job evaporate when that is all they have been trained to do.

    What are we doing about that?

    As far as I can tell - nothing!

    Of course, we're hammering worker's rights, too, and that should change. But in the long haul it may be more important that individuals are prepared to succeed in the economy we've got.
     
  4. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It's not indifference, it's freedom. And if he's not working, he's not working class.




     
  5. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    That's not what happens for those who are displaced.

    Stockholders can be thrilled. But, those who are bumped to welfare? Not so much.

    Plus, we then have some Mitt come along and tell us that those who were bumped are worthless lazy bastards, rather than noticing that there really IS a problem here.
     
  6. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    How many years until the last human truck driver becomes extinct ?? A couple of hundred years ago 97% of workers in the US were in agriculture. Now it is 3%. Technology advancement changes the distribution of labor but it doesn't happen overnight. People will have time to train for other jobs and as the number of human guided trucks declines very few young people will choose to train for the special truck drivers license. The preceding is a very rational description of the process of creative destruction coined in 1942 by the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter.
     
  7. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    The catch is that in the short term this does not work automatically. A displaced worker does not necessarily have the time or tools to gain another job that is anywhere near equivalent.

    Not only that, but as I noted our government (and the governments of other first world nations) have played a role in mitigating this problem. For example, we recognized that a manufacturing economy requires more education than an agricultural economy, so we added 4 years of REQUIRED education.

    Now YOU are proposing that changes of that kind were not (and ARE not) required to maintain healthy employment.

    And, I see absolutely no evidence for that. In fact, we are a living example of how that is NOT working.
     
  8. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    Let me take this one step farther.

    If we can't manage getting more of our work force being highly productive, our economy WILL lose out to those nations which ARE successful at doing that.

    How will that happen? First of all, we can't afford more people who can't compete in our economy. Second of all, the nature of our economy is changing such that it is getting more difficult to find those who CAN compete - who can move our economy forward. New businesses, new technologies, new employment opportunities come from those with higher education.

    The direction of simply despising those who can't compete is a major fail - in fact, a disaster for America.

    This is a problem that WE have to solve.
     
  9. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Sure it does. Those displaced find new employment and if they show some personal initiative and invest in increasing their respective human capital through training the new jobs will be better paying. That's the purpose of unemployment benefits - to provide some months of income to bridge the time gap between jobs.

    This is all part of the process of creative destruction. There is no problem - this has been going on for thousands of years. There are some temporary losers (including the stockholders of the economically "destroyed" companies) but capital is allocated to the new and more efficient businesses. That is what capitalism does and that is why capitalism has been very much more effective in raising the overall standard of living of those countries (almost all of them since the 80's) whose governments embrace free market capitalism and globalization. I just finished reading "Commanding Heights" which goes through the process of replacing centrally planned and government controlled economies with free market economies and the great success (not without problems however) of this process.

    Please provide a quote where Romney accused those people who lost jobs as worthless and lazy. The Ryan Roadmap which provided some of the Romney platform has a specific section addressing job training as well as Medicare & Social Security reform and Tax Reform. Here is a summary from Appendix 1


    http://www.deseretnews.com/media/pdf/349985.pdf
     
  10. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Of course it works automatically and has done so for thousands of years. What has happened to the workers who formerly assembled television sets, computers, refrigerators, welded car bodies, sewed Levis, etc ... Do we have hundreds of thousands of people on welfare for tens of years because they could not find work ??

    The reason the Obama economy is so forked up (median family income down ~ $1500, economic growth ~ 1% per capita, real (U6) unemployment at ~ 10%, labor participation rate the lowest since 1977) is gov policy which adversely affects the creation and growth of small businesses. ObamaCare, Dodd Frank, and increasing the income tax rate by ~ 10% for pass through businesses. Regulation is killing entrepreneurship in the US.
     
  11. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    No, those who are displaced do NOT always have a possibility of finding new employment. Look at Detroit. Large numbers were lost to a failing manufacturing market, and those displaced were not needed. Look at the radically changing requirements for jobs available today.

    If you believe Mitt, you believe there IS a problem.

    However, Mitt's preferred solution is to IGNORE the problem.

    Our economy IS a free market economy, by the way.

    And, Ryan's thing is a stop-gap. It is oriented to mitigating the immediate term disaster, but doesn't cover anything related to how we need to proceed to address the future that has arrived. It doesn't even mention education. It doesn't mention issues related to the fact that our kids need to be prepared to address new careers as the ones for which they planned disappear - and disappear at an increasing rate.
     
  12. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Romney's point is that those people will vote for free stuff. And they did.

    Detroit is a prime example of progressive liberal government in action just as is the case for Baltimore and Chicago. Detroit's population is now ~ 700,000 down from a high of 1,800,000. US auto makers now compete on a global basis. Foreign auto makers have moved manufacturing to the US but to right to work states predominantly in the south. Manufacturing jobs are lost to technology. But technological progress leads to new employment opportunities for those with the proper education/training. That's the way it has been for thousands of years.

    Ryan's plan is a plan for the future - one that recognizes that creative destruction results in short term losers and that the importance of a good education/training in disciplines that actually lead to high paying jobs is extremely important today and will be increasingly important in the future. Training is education.

    Our economy is becoming less and less of a free market economy every year.

    http://www.cato.org/economic-freedom-world
     
  13. WillReadmore

    WillReadmore Well-Known Member

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    No, Detroit is an example of right wing economics in action. Those dumped by corporations were left with no recourse, no support, and no way out. Retirement funding mechanisms were trashed, leaving people with far less or nothing of what they were counting on. The result was hundreds of thousands of gainfully employed citizens found it necessary to flee.

    That is EXACTLY what the right wing prescribes. And, because of the changes our economy is going through, that is NOT satisfactory.

    Ryan's plan says NOTHING about the future at all. It's a set of minor stop gap measures that do nothing to address the needs of citizens in our changing economy. As a whole, his direction is, in fact, a destruction of even the stop gap measures as he works to kill SS, health care, and other aid to those ejected from our rapidly changing economy.
     
  14. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    As you can see from this thread, the reason why we're doing nothing about it is that there are a lot of people don't see it as a problem at all.
     
  15. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    socialism happens if we ever get to that point....
     
  16. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    I would say you've made my point.
     
  17. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    When we made the switch from agriculture to manufacturing, most of those manufacturing jobs were not highly skilled positions. It was relatively easy to transition from one to another. But as you've described, low skilled jobs are being replaced by far fewer highly skilled jobs. In most cases, you are not going to turn a truck driver into an engineer. That's the issue. The few new jobs being created are for higher IQ people than the many jobs being destroyed.
     
  18. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    How is the economic demise of Detroit a problem caused by right wing policies ?? What policies are those that you claim the "right wing prescribes" and what changes is our economy going through ?? The D's have been running the show since 1970. Kwame Kilpatrick was elected in 2002 but resigned in 2008 and is now serving a 28 year sentence for corruption. Detroit filed chapter 9 bankruptcy in 2013. Even Dave Bing could not save Detroit.

    You are claiming that 1,100,000 auto employees fled Detroit ??
     
  19. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Now they are not. There are jobs available now in the US which cannot be filled because people do not have the fundamental skills to fill them. These are not PhD engineering jobs but positions for machinists, welders, electronics technicians, software programmers, etc... But it takes training to develop the skills. Globalization will move manufacturing performed by low skill workers off shore where developing economies have the comparative advantage of low cost labor. Unfortunately our public education system does not do very well in delivering a quality product to low income neighborhoods. That is why a voucher system such as they have in New Orleans, New York City, and Washington DC are so important in giving low income parents options for their kids education. The D's however line up with the teacher's unions who contribute significant sums to their reelection. It is the R's who push for education reform. Sadly the D's value campaign contributions above the welfare of low income children's education which is the only way for these kids to get out of the low income situation and have a good chance of succeeding in our merit based economy.
     
  20. Taxpayer

    Taxpayer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It sucks to be a Neanderthal.




     
  21. Meta777

    Meta777 Moderator Staff Member

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    Yeah, required education level for new jobs being created is an issue, and like you alluded to,
    even only looking at the low numbers alone of jobs being created to replace the ones lost
    is cause for concern as more and more roles become automated.

    Also at issue, is the very ability of those jobs to meet the financial needs of those who fill them.
    If we were to somehow solve the issue of getting people the necessary education,
    if the people who control the resources (ie: the "job creators") don't need them,
    their addition to the educated workforce wont do much more than lower the pay of people working those high-skill jobs overall.

    Supposedly, we could create more jobs by getting rid of things like the minimum wage,
    (and I'm not really a fan of min wage myself) but even if that's true, it wont help much if those jobs don't pay the bills....

    Automation is not a bad thing in and of itself though. IMO, the key to all of these issues, is to simply make sure
    that the benefits of that automation, and the raw natural resources automation will undoubtedly still rely on, reaches everyone.

    -Meta
     
  22. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Well we've been talking about vouchers and education reform for decades, but the people who run education are still the same ones who run education. So if you are pinning hopes on education reform, that just isn't going to happen.
     
  23. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Well I have not heard of any good idea that does that.
     
  24. AFM

    AFM Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    It had better happen. The future of the children of low income parents invested in their kids future but forced to attend failing public schools depends on education reform. All we need is R's in charge to make it happen. The D's are not going to do it because of the campaign contributions of the teachers unions.
     
  25. Lil Mike

    Lil Mike Well-Known Member

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    Maybe now you are starting to see why I view this as a future societal disaster
     

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