Engineers are more productive but there is a shortage in the US. There is no way that the US has only 10% of the number of engineers it had in 1970. The problem with employment is the anemic economic growth resulting from the Obama economic policies.
Taxpayers/consumers ultimately fund unemployment benefits. In a growing economy 6 months is more than adequate to find employment in the same profession. The problem is that the economy is not "growing". Therefore there is very limited competition for those out of work. This is reflected not in the U3 number but in the U6 and LFPR. Automation results in lower prices which translate into greater discretionary income which translates again into funded demand for additional products and services resulting in jobs.
Under a more market friendly scenario, the wheelbarrow pusher would have been structurally "disemployed" or voluntarily quit to receive unemployment at fourteen dollars an hour instead of the fifteen dollars an hour that person should be making, pushing a wheelbarrow.
Let's move forward instead of simply getting stuck in details that can easily be solved, eventually; a "push" for anti-gravity technology could make "wheelbarrow pushing" a moot point.
There really isn't a shortage of mechanical engineers in the United States. There's a shortage of jobs per capita for mechanical engineers in America. I didn't state that we have fewer mechanical engineers but instead that roughly 90% of the work that the mechanical engineer used to perform is now done by computers. If the computers weren't doing this work we'd basically require ten-times more mechanical engineers today than what we have. We need to remember that worldwide, and not just in the United States, the number of manufacturing jobs per capita (which included the mechanical engineer's jobs) has decreased by about 40% due to artificial intelligence and technology (automation). Because the mechanical engineer's job was a high paying job it was one of the first targets for automation with computer technology based upon the cost/benefit analysis.
When you find the theoretical physics that will support anti-gravity technology then let us know. We've had the theoretical physics for nuclear fusion for about a century and still don't have a fully functional nuclear fusion reactor. We're closer to 3-D printing of a chicken dinner than we are to anti-gravity.
you misunderstand the Cause, via fallacy. Money circulating is what creates a positive multiplier effect on our economy. Thus, solving for simple poverty and the capitali effects of capitalism's, natural rate of unemployment, solve the dilemma we are discussing, regardless of any automation.
It looks like we are coming out of a "contraction". Why is that, this current administration's fault? It seems like Capitalism just being its usual, boom and bust cycle, self. You can't have it both ways and not lose ground to socialism. - - - Updated - - - Fifteen dollars an hour for minimum wage and fourteen dollars an hour for unemployment compensation, solves that problem.
Those jobs must simply not pay enough to make it worth while for more people to acquire that knowledge. Fifteen dollars an hour minimum wage and fourteen dollars an hour for unemployment compensation, can help solve that problem.
We need the equivalent to an oil pump to circulate money in our economy. A fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage does that, along with fourteen dollars an hour for unemployment compensation, simply for being unemployed. Persons simply spending money on a consistent basis is what promotes the general welfare of any economy. - - - Updated - - - dear, we had a Manhattan Project for fission but not fusion. Why not one for fusion, instead of a useless, War on Drugs.
Productivity increases are a good thing. It is the driver of economic growth on a per capita basis. Are you saying that we should abandon technology improvements in order to employ more engineers - we could always go back to slide rules which I used in engineering school.
Absolutely not. What I would propose is that all workers should be able to earn a decent living from employment because automation makes that possible. Once again we know based upon the GDP that we're producing about $16 trillion worth of wealth annually and it would only cost about 1/4th of that for every working household to have a decent living and that's possible because of the advancements in artificial intelligence and technology (automation). Why in the world do we have "working poverty" in the United States when we're creating so much wealth annually? That makes no sense whatsoever.
You are looking at the wrong metric. The correct metrics is the standard of living and the real household income. The distribution of income is based on productivity. The lower quintiles are the least productive (and youngest with the least experience). As the productivity of individuals increases they move up into the higher quintiles (the average residence time in the lowest quintile is ~ 4 years) which consist of older individuals who have more experience and are more productive. If gov screws with the economy economic growth is reduced and unemployment (and lower wages) results. Capitalism is the worst economic system except for everything else. It provides the greatest economic growth and has been responsible for bringing more people out of true poverty than any other system. And it also provides the most resources to fund social safety net programs. This effect is maximized when economic growth is maximized. It is gov interference with the free market that reduces economic growth under capitalism which is then the greedy capitalists are blamed by gov for the slowdown. This is going on right now in the US at the DNC.
Fifteen dollars for a minimum wage and fourteen dollars an hour for unemployment compensation, solves your dilemma.
automation creates a treasure chest of money for the rich to enjoy and live lavishly from, while leaving everyone else poor and underemployed servicing the rich, or unemployed altogether. we should not create busy work at the expense of the rich, to provide a decent living to the poor. what we ought to do is give them free handouts from the treasure chest of the rich and let them find their own solutions, either as entrepreneurs for some, artists and scientists for others, or idle happiness for the rest.
That's ridiculous. Reforms leading toward a truly free market paradigm will result in maximizing economic growth and competition for labor leading to higher real household incomes. Gov control results in a much lower trajectory (see the Obama economy). Education reforms are critical as well.
Fifteen dollars for a minimum wage and fourteen dollars an hour for unemployment compensation, solves your dilemma. - - - Updated - - - Fifteen dollars for a minimum wage and fourteen dollars an hour for unemployment compensation, solves your dilemma.
unemployment compensation has the condition of unemployment, a universal basic income is unconditional and redistributes wealth from the rich to the poor in the form of monthly checks.
The evidence, on the post, confirms Karl Marx prediction concerning automation. Furthermore, and most importantly, it means high technology will replace money in circulation. The previous leading to the social onset of the "withering of the state".
While I can understand the foundation of your opinion it reminds me of a line from the song "I'd Love to Change the World" by Ten Years After. But there's an inherent problem with the first verse. When there are no more rich then the poor starve. The second verse is where we're really at today. We need to change the world but we really don't know what to do. I've read Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto" on socialism and Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" on capitalism and both address commerce from opposite ends of the spectrum where neither addresses the problem we face with the obsolescence of labor driven by automation (artificial intelligence and technology) because both are based upon labor in commerce. Wealth redistribution through taxation isn't the real answer to our problem but instead we need a new economic philosophy of commerce that provides some form of equitable distribution of the wealth when it's actually being created so that every person/household has what they require for a decent living. We need a new economic philosophy of commerce based upon the "Natural Rights of Property" as enumerated by John Locke in his Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapter 5. That is something I'm not up to because it would take a person far wiser than myself to create such a philosophy. The reason I argue for a new "economic philosophy of commerce" should be obvious because without it we concentrate the power of our very existence into the hands of the few politicians and within that lies the roots of absolute despotism such as we've seen under the tyrannical regimes of communism in the past. We must have the philosophy that prevents the absolute despotism of government but we don't have that ideological foundation. How do we achieve the benefits of automation and commerce for all of the people without centralization of the power in the hands of the few?
are we going back to a gold standard? such, "monetary absolutism" should require market based inputs. unemployment compensation simply for being unemployed, is a market based input.
